


oh don't you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me

by suzukiblu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Darcy Lewis, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Courting Rituals, Darcy Lewis can't lose, Dirty Talk, Discussion of Abortion, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, Fantasy Gender Roles, Female Alphas Fuck Yeah, Healing Knot, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Multi, Omega Bucky Barnes, Praise Kink, healing cock, post-CATWS, references to past forced abortion, references to past rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-21 00:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 72,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3670266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy is thirty feet out of Stark-cum-Avengers Tower when she starts craving cinnamon rolls--the sticky-sweet iced-up old-fashioned kind, yummy and messy and dripping gooshy icing all over your mouth and hands and down your yuuuup, yup, that is a super, super fertile omega that she is smelling, holy <i>shit</i> is it ever. </p><p>“Jesus Christ,” she groans in frustration, then follows her alpha instincts (and, more easily and importantly, her <i>nose</i>) to go track them down. They’re in the middle of New York City; middle of the day or not, not checking on somebody who smells like <i>that</i> is, like, the ultimate dick move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. back-alley bath bombs

**Author's Note:**

> Completely unrelated to that [other](http://archiveofourown.org/series/201566) ABO fic. 
> 
> LOOK I NEEDED ALPHA DARCY AND THE INTERNET WAS NOT GIVING IT TO ME, OKAY. And as for the fandom Buckycle, well, duh. Anyway someone went and recced me as a good Wintershock author a while back and I really felt I owed the fandom _more_ Wintershock after that, soooo hope you guys are into alpha ladies! Lots of alpha ladies. _All the alpha ladies_. 
> 
> God, this really was just supposed to be like 10k of cute idfic, not the past three months of my life. Whoops?

Darcy is thirty feet out of Stark-cum-Avengers Tower when she starts craving cinnamon rolls--the sticky-sweet iced-up old-fashioned kind, yummy and messy and dripping gooshy icing all over your mouth and hands and down your yuuuup, yup, that is a super, super fertile omega that she is smelling, holy _shit_ is it ever. 

“Jesus Christ,” she groans in frustration, then follows her alpha instincts (and, more easily and importantly, her _nose_ ) to go track them down. They’re in the middle of New York City; middle of the day or not, not checking on somebody who smells like _that_ is, like, the ultimate dick move. 

She also pulls out her taser and cell just in case there are less altruistically-minded alphas doing the same as her, because Darcy Lewis is a realist and also let’s not even play, right now her alpha hormones wouldn’t mind the excuse for a fight. That is hindbrain-thinking, though, and she doggedly ignores it even if it’s been six months since they left Ian and his delicious melty marshmallow and milk chocolate pheromones back in London to finish his--

 _Anyway_. Here. Now. Omega. 

Sticky-sweet yummy messy _gooshy_ omega-- _not helping, hindbrain_. 

Ugh. 

Three blocks and infinite weird twisty turns later Darcy ends up in a skinny dead-end alley with crummy lighting even this time of day and boarded-up windows on all its buildings, which is not a smart choice for either her or this omega to be making, she thinks. There’s a few other alphas already there, one crouched down and talking real quiet to the omega and two standing a little further away, so Darcy conceals her taser and hovers her finger over the emergency call button on her cell just in case, hanging back automatically. 

The omega she’s just chased down is about her age and huddled up in the darkest and least safe-looking corner of the place, a male with long dark hair wearing thick jeans, heavy boots, a good three layers of shirts, and a denim jacket, all topped off with a baseball cap. It is genuinely _terrible_ heat clothing--okay, well, any clothing is pretty terrible in heat, but even if he’d slept in those clothes last night the guy _must’ve_ at least been in pre-heat when he got dressed, how the hell he’s standing being grated on by that much rough and heavy fabric is completely--

His hair’s kind of greasy, Darcy realizes. He hasn’t shaved in a few days; at least long enough that even an omega jawline is showing stubble. The clothes are a little dingy, and under that yummy cinnamon-bun scent he smells more like antiseptic wipes and public bathroom soap than the kind of lush and lovey bath products and lotions most omegas Darcy knows pamper themselves with in pre-heat, making themselves all soft and pretty and yummy-smelling, with scents deliberately chosen to complement their heat pheromones. 

“Antiseptic wipe and cinnamon sugar” is definitely _not_ a complementing combination. 

Okay. So he’s homeless, or at least thoroughly temporarily stranded--a tourist who missed a flight and couldn’t afford a hotel or a local who got kicked out of the apartment by a dick roommate or who knows, really. Either way he clearly didn’t have the resources to be nice to himself in pre-heat and looks like he’s paying for it now; he smells like he’s pretty early in his cycle and already looks unhappy as hell. Which is kind of a shame because he smells sweet as hell even with the antiseptic and yeah, her clit’s already sitting up and taking notice enough to make her pants a little uncomfortable, but she’s not the actual scum of the earth and under the circumstances can’t really enjoy it. 

The omega looks up at the alpha crouched in front of him then, and his expression is absolute _misery_. Darcy loses her chub entirely at the sight and it takes everything in her to suppress the instincts that want to go kill, like, a _mastodon_ for the guy and also everyone who’s ever been rude to him in his life. Jesus. 

The alpha looks alarmed, and his fingers twitch towards--

His _gun_. He has a fucking gun on him. He has a fucking gun on him and just aborted the instinctive grab for it after making eye contact with a distressed omega, what the fuck. What the fuck. 

“Hey now, sweetheart. Don’t be like that,” the alpha says, just the edge of wariness in his voice. “Don’t you want to come home with us? You know we’ll take care of you good.” 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Darcy says incredulously, and all three alphas stiffen at the sound of her voice, but none of them take their eyes off the omega on the ground. And not in the pheromone-drunk way she’s used to, either the sweet or creepy version; more like they’re waiting to see if a vicious-looking dog is inclined to try biting. 

Darcy immediately wants to stick her taser in all their fucking _crotches_. A heated-up omega isn’t a threat, not to anybody who’ll take “no” for an answer and isn’t trying to drag them home with a bunch of their buddies like a damn _party_ favor. 

“I’m calling the cops,” she announces loudly, holding up her phone, and _that_ makes the other alphas glance over to her. 

And also reach for their guns. 

Well, this explains how she could scent this guy for three blocks but no other alphas are hanging around in _New York_ , she thinks briefly in the terrifying second before the omega starts growling. The alphas all go white-faced, and one even more terrifying blur later all three are smeared across the ground with multiple broken bones and the omega is standing over them and snarling with blood splattered on his fists, one bare and one gloved. 

“Shit!” Darcy blurts, wondering if she should be calling the cops. The omega bares his teeth at her. 

“Fuck off!” he snarls viciously, hackles up. “I’m not going back!” 

“Dude, believe me, I am in no way trying to take you _anywhere_ you don’t wanna go,” Darcy says feelingly, half-hiding behind the probably-not-that-much-protection mouth of the alleyway. She should really be either running or tasing him or tasing him and _then_ running, and is fairly sure that if she were an omega or beta she _would_ be. 

But yeah, fuck everyone’s romanticized view of them, the protective alpha instincts are _shit_. Even after watching the guy take out three other dudes like they were nothing, Darcy’s instincts are still parsing like he’s in distress and needs her. Her useless-ass hindbrain is reading this big asskicking dude’s pheromones like he’s a fawning virgin in a period piece bodice-ripper. 

A _delicious_ fawning virgin, for the record. Like, it’s embarrassingly hard not to salivate right now. 

Jesus, like it wasn’t bad enough that Captain _freaking_ America’s spent the whole week scenting up the tower with his apple pie pre-heat--seriously, not even a joke, _literally apple pie_ , what even _is_ that man--but now she can’t even go out for lunch without tripping over the only omega she’s ever met who smells better than _that_ did. 

Darcy is control of her head and her hormones and her stupid greedy knot, okay, but this is just _mean_. 

“You’re--not?” The omega hesitates, shifting back a step. His eyes stay fixed on her but his head ducks a little. Darcy does not think about putting her teeth in the bared back of his neck at _all_. Not even a little. 

“Definitely not,” she says. “Also, pretty sure I couldn’t even if I wanted to, you are like a force of freaking nature over there. Also, stay over there. Like . . . very firmly there.” 

“I--why?” the omega asks, looking lost. 

“. . . because you’re scary?” Darcy says, staring at him a little. She’d figured that one would be pretty self-explanatory, under the circumstances. “Look, do you need, like--I have my phone, I can call somebody for you. Do you _need_ me to call somebody for you? Like a friend or--” 

“I _have_ a friend!” the omega snarls, instantly looking terrifying all over again. 

Well. Okay then. 

“So that’s a yes on the call?” Darcy manages weakly, holding her phone up. The omega stares at her. One of the alphas on the ground groans, and the omega flinches, curling in small on himself, which is . . . quite a feat on a guy that size, frankly. 

And fucking _awful_ to watch. 

“Jesus, come on, let’s at least get you out of here,” Darcy says, scowling down at them. “Like I’m not trying to make you come anywhere with me, I just don’t feel right leaving you with _them_.” 

“They wanted to take me back,” the omega says abruptly. “I don’t--I don’t hurt people that don’t deserve it. I’m--am I in trouble?” 

“You’re not in trouble,” Darcy says, carefully pocketing her phone and even more carefully reaching out a hand towards him, because the alphas on the ground are still stirring and the omega’s looking increasingly nervous and small. He must be way deeper into it than he seems, if he’s asking questions like that--hell, omegas don’t usually get this sensitive about an alpha’s opinion until they’ve actually _fucked_ , and Darcy would definitely remember this guy locking her knot. “C’mere though, okay? I think you’re in it pretty deep.” 

“Yes ma’am,” the omega says, wearing that miserable face again as he steps over the alphas on the ground to come to her. Darcy kind of wants to throw up at the sight, and also cuddle him until her arms go numb. He drops his head and pushes it into her hand, and he’s tall enough that the gesture means he’s got to duck low enough to bare the back of his neck to her eyes, even with the shirts and jacket in the way. 

The universe is a _terrible_ place, Darcy decides while she’s busy reining in her hormones. 

“Do you have a heat partner?” she asks. Mercifully, the omega straightens up. Less mercifully, he still looks miserable. 

“My friend,” he says. “My friend and I used to help each other out, I think, but . . .” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Darcy says, trying to sound soothing as she digs for the wet wipes in her purse and passes one over. She’s not that great at the soothing thing; Ian was always flattered when she tried, even if she screwed it up, but this guy doesn’t know her well enough for that so she really hopes she’s pulling it off. “I can walk you to a clinic, okay? In case any other assholes like those guys come sniffing around, I mean, not--uh, you know.” 

“I can’t go to a clinic,” the omega says, his fingers twisting roughly around the wet wipe. Darcy frowns. 

“They’ve got a free one over on--” she starts, but he shakes his head. 

“There’s cameras in the waiting rooms,” he says. “And out front.” 

“And cameras are bad,” Darcy says, voice slow. He nods, but doesn’t explain why. He cleans his hands very carefully with the wipe, though, and Darcy realizes belatedly that the glove is not a glove. That . . . that is metal, yes. All the way through, as far as she can tell. Holy _crap_. 

Okay. Cameras are bad. Which also rules out the hospital and the cops and really even just standing around on the street, so they’d better think of something quick. 

“What are your feelings on semi-sentient buildings?” she asks, glancing back into the alley to make sure no one’s on their feet yet. 

“Uh. What?” the omega asks blankly. 

“Walking and talking, buddy, let’s go,” Darcy says, reclaiming the used wipe and not _quite_ putting a hand on the small of his back to guide him along but strongly telegraphing the intent to. He follows it even without her making contact, so that’s . . . good, probably. He flinched at the “buddy”, though, so maybe it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. Or . . . something. 

She might actually be using that phrase wrong, but whatever. 

At least he didn’t punch her into a wall for trying it, she muses as she tosses the wipe into a convenient trash can. She’s already doing better than those creeps in the alley. There’s actual people on the street proper and the omega gets a few appreciative sniffs, but he keeps letting Darcy guide his steps as they head down the sidewalk and no other alphas or betas come up to challenge her claim. Which, well--why would they? It’s the middle of the damn day in an expensive neighborhood and these people have no way to know the guy’s not her boyfriend or fiance or even her mate outright. 

“. . . you smell like apple pie,” the omega mutters, distracting Darcy from her thoughts. She blinks. She took a shower this morning and Steve hasn’t been on any of the common floors since yesterday--he and Sam have been on the road for months, no one was surprised he’d wanted to nest heavily this round, especially while preparing for the luxury of having an extra heat partner in Natasha--and she knows damn well there’s been no _actual_ apple pie around. Apparently Steve’s pheromones are even more ridiculous than she’d thought. 

“One of my friends is heated up this week,” she says. “His heat scent’s a lot like apple pie, you’re probably smelling him.” 

“My friend . . . I don’t remember what he smelled like,” the omega says, staring at the sidewalk. “But--I liked it.” 

“I have met very, very few people who do not like heat scent,” Darcy tells him, wondering if he’s trying to admit to being a little queer. Or a lot. She wouldn’t judge, she’s gotten a little swoony over Jane’s rut pheromones before. “Anyway, like I was saying, normally I would not be doing this and I swear I’m not a creep, but my building is kind of huge and amazing and if you don’t want to go to a clinic, I will _gladly_ give you a heat’s worth of protein bars and water bottles and let you barricade yourself into our guest room. Hell, I’ll even barricade my side of the door too, if that helps.” 

“How?” the omega asks, frowning. 

“We’ve got, like, chairs and shit, I’ll stick one under the doorknob or push the couch in front of the door,” Darcy promises. 

“No, I mean--how would you do that from _inside_ the room?” he asks, still frowning. 

“. . . well, we can skip that step,” Darcy says, because _duh_ she is not telling a super-hot cinnamon-sticky sugar-iced omega that she won’t have his back for his heat. _Literally_. Uh, that is unless--“I mean, if you _want_ me to be your heat partner. Like, I’m willing, but it’s not like you can’t crash if you don’t, the place is basically a hotel anyway.” 

“You challenged for me,” the omega says, looking confused. “The last alpha standing gets me.” 

“That’s, uh . . . old-fashioned,” Darcy says carefully, more than a little nauseous at the thought. Okay, maybe it’s not _just_ a bad heatdrop throwing this guy off his game. In retrospect, his eyes are clearer than they should be for that anyway, so . . . yeah. She has no idea, really. “Also you seem to be remembering the events of the alley going a _lot_ more favorably for me than they actually did. _You’re_ the only reason I was the last alpha standing.” 

“Yeah,” the omega says, his eyes darkening as he looks her over. “I am.” 

. . . well then. 

“Well, in _that_ case,” Darcy says, clearing her throat as she settles her hand properly on the omega’s back. The muscles under her palm are tense as a drum for all of a second before going pliant and sweet as anything, and then he somehow manages to look up at her through his lashes while also looking _down_ at her, which is a pretty impressive feat for anybody and probably an invaluable one for an omega who’s got to be a good six feet tall, considering. 

It definitely does things to her hindbrain, either way. 

_God_ this omega is attractive. Like, both the amount and _quality_ of random ass-kicking omega hobos in her life is much, much more impressive than she was led to believe growing up. 

“I’m Darcy Lewis,” she says. The omega mumbles something back, sounding weirdly uncertain for an introduction; Darcy just tries as hard as she can to catch it. “Uh--Thacket?” she _thinks_ she picks out accurately from the tangle. He hesitates, but nods. “There a first name with that?” she tries. He mumbles again, and the best she can get is--“Jamie?” 

He hesitates before nodding again, but at least it’s a name. Maybe not his _real_ one, but whatever, Darcy’s not going to blame him if it’s not. 

“Okay,” she says, stopping across the street from Avengers Tower and gesturing with her free hand. “Well, Jamie, here we are. Home sweet . . . uh, skyscraper.” 

Jamie looks, and goes weirdly pale. 

“I can’t go in there,” he says. 

“No, it’s totally cool, you absolutely can,” Darcy assures him. “I’m a live-in, there’s a bunch of residential floors and the whole place is already running on heat protocol for the friend I told you about anyway. All the floor-to-floor vents are filtering and nobody can get on anyone else’s floor without being buzzed up.” 

Not that that particular protocol is necessary in _Avengers Tower_ , of all places, but it does prevent people from accidentally tripping over each other at a bad time in their hormonal cycles, so Darcy’s definitely not complaining. It was embarrassing enough the time she accidentally walked in on Jane rutting Thor over the--well, it’d been an education in addition to the embarrassment, definitely. But the embarrassment had also been a pretty big thing. 

Seriously, though, like her clit is not already stirred up enough without her remembering what the alien god-prince looks like in heat. Jesus. 

“But it’s . . .” Jamie trails off, hesitant, and Darcy strokes the small of his back _really_ carefully. He goes soft under the gesture, mercifully, and ducks his head again. 

“It’s okay,” she repeats, because obviously there’s more than one reason an asskicker with a metal hand and a phobia of cameras might be nervous about going into Avengers Tower. “It’s safe, I swear, and the security cams black out on anybody with heat or rut hormones coming off them. I mean, we can get a hotel if you want, but--” 

“Cameras,” Jamie says, expression miserable again. That look should not make Darcy want to _knot_ , but on an omega whose hormones are crying out to _be_ knotted? Yeah. Yeahhh, it really does. 

“I can--” she starts, but he’s already shaking his head. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Just--you’re sure it’ll black me out?” 

“At this rate it’s going to black us _both_ out,” Darcy says, biting her lip. “Seriously, I’m this close to the beginning stages of sympathy rut, man.” 

“. . . promise?” Jamie asks, his eyes getting glittery and dark in a _very distracting_ way. 

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Darcy says, trying not to stare too hard. Jamie ducks his head again and gives her that sweet under-the-lashes look with those glitterdark eyes and yup, yup, her clit is _definitely_ with _that_ program. Her clit is signed up and on board and _majoring_ in that program. 

Then he ducks his head a little lower and bares the back of his neck to her as he leans in to press the softest little kittenish kiss to the shoulder of her coat, and--okay, yes. Yes, Darcy is totally going to sympathy rut for this guy. No doubt at all. 

“Nargh,” is about all she actually manages to say about that before she grabs him by the sleeve and drags him across the street, and Jamie follows her easy as anything, like a lamb on a leash. Darcy tries not to think very hard about that because she is never living it down if she blows her knot before she even gets the guy to her _floor_. 

She runs her keycard and tells J.A.R.V.I.S. she’s got an emergency heat partner she’s bringing up, and he helpfully directs her to the backmost elevator and promises to warn Thor and Jane and Erik to keep their heads down while she gets her omega settled in. He uses that phrasing, even-- _“your charming young omega”_ , all prim and proper in his synthetic accent. Darcy can’t help the shy little grin at hearing it, and when she glances over at him Jamie’s staring a hole in the floor and blushing pretty as a fucking picture. 

“Thanks, J.A.R.V.I.S.,” she says. 

“Of course, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says graciously, as clearly the best wingman ever. 

They hit the Thor floor--Darcy is _never_ getting sick of calling it that--and Darcy leans out of the elevator to double-check real quick, but true to J.A.R.V.I.S.’s word there’s no sight of anyone else, although she can smell faint traces of Thor’s mead and metal-tinged scent. He might be early this cycle, actually, and come to think Steve was a little late; she wonders if they’re synching up. That would be . . . amazing, and also terrifying. And _amazing_. 

Prooobably not good for the free world, though, since if Thor and Steve synch up with each other then Tony will almost definitely get dragged in too and that’s half the Avengers right there. At least Bruce and Clint are betas, thank God, because _someone’s_ going to have to save the world if something comes up, and Natasha is going to be really fucking scary if she misses the chance to knot Steve because of AIM or HYDRA or whoever. They won’t be getting any support from Sam or Pepper, though. Maybe Rhodey, if the Air Force actually _lets_ him and he doesn’t synch up with Tony, but--

Come to think of it, Darcy reflects, she’s an unmated alpha with next to no use in a firefight; there’s every possibility Steve might ask _her_ to be his heat partner if there’s an emergency and Sam and Natasha get called out. 

She glazes over briefly at the thought, then remembers that she literally has a heat partner _right here_ and turns bright red, immediately looking over to him. Fortunately Jamie seems distracted by staring out the apartment’s huge windows with a half-awed, half-traumatized look on his face. Darcy steers him away from them politely because the stress is showing a little--the view’s gorgeous any time of day but from the look on his face she’s pretty sure he’s scared of heights. 

Also, he is smelling increasingly cinnamon-sugar-perfect, and there’s definitely some stuff they have to do before their pheromones hit the tipping point. 

“My room’s this way,” she tells him as she leads him down the hall. “Is that okay, or do you want to use one of the guest suites?” She knows some omegas don’t feel comfortable in an alpha’s den for heat--Ian didn’t, and Steve mentioned similar feelings over breakfast last week when heat-planning with Sam and Nat. And that’s omegas who _know_ their heat partners. Jamie just shakes his head, though. 

“Yours is fine,” he murmurs. Darcy suddenly wishes she’d cleaned it any time in the past month, but it’s a little late now. She takes him into her room and shoves last night’s pajamas off the bed sheepishly, kicking them into the closet quick. He laughs a little, which is . . . fucking _gorgeous_ , frankly, and Darcy nearly glazes over all over again. 

“I have stuff!” she blurts. Jamie looks confused, and she bolts for the bathroom door in an attempt to preserve her dignity before he starts thinking she’d meant sex toys or something. “I mean, I have omega-grade bath products, if you want,” she clarifies, leaning against the door and pointing at the cute little emergency gift basket of them she keeps in the back corner of the tub, just in case. It’s vanilla-scented, fortunately, and should go fine with Jamie’s warm cinnamon bun scent. Definitely better than the antiseptic wipes, anyway. 

She hasn’t really met an omega who _wouldn’t_ want one last pampering session before true heat set in, honestly, asking is really just a formality in--

“I’m--allowed?” Jamie asks, looking uncertainly at the little basket. He’s in so close his heat-scent almost makes her stupid, but nothing could make her stupid enough that the bottom wouldn’t drop out of her stomach at that question. What kind of _fucked up_ heat partners has he _had_? 

“You are totally allowed, go nuts. Like, absolutely nuts, to your heart’s content,” Darcy tells him fervently, because the alternative option is tracking down all his exes and tazing them in their fucking _knots_ and she really doesn’t have that kind of time right now. “There’s bath bombs, even. Um, slightly glittery ones, fair warning, but they smell _really_ good.” 

“What’s a . . . uh, ‘bath bomb’?” Jamie asks, sounding a little skeptical. 

“They’re awesome, trust me, just toss one in when the tub’s full up,” Darcy says, leaning over to start the water since Jamie’s still hanging back uncertainly. “Unless you like bubble bath. Do you like bubble bath?” 

“I don’t, uh . . . I don’t know,” Jamie says, glancing nervously at the bath basket. 

Maybe she’ll track down his exes and taze them in their fucking knots _after_ this, Darcy thinks. 

“There’s instructions on everything,” she tells him. “Use as much hot water as you want, it’s literally limitless. I’m gonna go grab some supplies while you get cleaned up, okay?” 

“Understood,” Jamie says, eyes flicking to the water. “How long do I have?” 

“As long as you want,” Darcy says, thinking longingly of her taser. “Like . . . that’s the point, you know? So you can relax and feel good and get all clean and pretty?” It’s actually a little embarrassing to say out loud and with all her clothes on, but that’s probably just because most of her early ventures into softcore porn involved omega-on-omega action in a shared heat bath, sooo . . . yeah. 

“I’m not pretty,” Jamie says, just barely frowning at her. 

“Okay, well . . . the relaxing and feeling good part, at least,” Darcy says, not even knowing how to _address_ that level of disconnect. Jamie is definitely pretty--or, well, maybe a little closer to _handsome_ than the omega ideal, but still, there’s alphas who are into that. Her, for example. She is definitely into that. “I’m gonna be a bit anyway, just take your time and enjoy it, okay? Hell, try out the whole basket while you’re at it, I bet it’s awesome.” 

“. . . yes, alpha,” Jamie says, frown deepening in confusion. Darcy can’t decide how horrible a person it makes her that she wants to sit on the edge of the tub and pull him down across her lap right _now_ , but is pretty sure it’s unnecessarily horrible. 

“Awesome, good, excellent,” she says instead of actually doing that, fleeing the bathroom past him out through her room, pausing only long enough to ditch her hat and coat before heading straight into the hall. Jane and Thor are in the living room now and cuddled up all cute on the couch, and Darcy was right, Thor _does_ smell like he’s coming up on his cycle, which makes it really hard not to picture those old omega-on-omega softcores she used to get so into when she was a kid with no idea what to do with her knot. Like, Thor could be washing Jamie’s hair for him right now, maybe help him braid it all cute, that’s a thing that could feasibly be happening--annnd yup, yup, her hindbrain is definitely working overtime, awesome, good, excellent. 

_Jesus_.

“The hottest omega in the world is in my bathtub right now,” Darcy announces, speaking of her hindbrain. 

“I’ll accept that statement only because Thor is technically not of our world,” Jane replies primly, cuddling closer to him, and Thor laughs. 

“You are too kind, my Jane,” he says. “Congratulations on being chosen by such a fine omega, Darcy! I’m sure they will appreciate your attentions.” 

“You guys don’t even _know_ , he literally beat up three other alphas right in front of me,” Darcy says, cracking open the emergency heat supplies closet and grabbing two of the reusable shopping bags off the back of the door to fill with snacks and bottled drinks. She’s got a mini-fridge parked next to her bed courtesy of Tony Stark, he of the infinite-clean-energy/no-power-bill, but it’s empty right now. Fortunately the heat closet is well-supplied with high-protein snacks and bottled drinks and yummy little sweets for pampering, although she’s gonna have to hit up the big fridge in the kitchen for some actually fresh fruit and not just the dried stuff. 

“He beat them up?” Jane repeats, blinking. “What, _literally_?” 

“Literally,” Darcy confirms, grabbing water bottles and then eyeing a few different kinds of juice before just tossing one of each into the bag. She forgot to ask Jamie how long his heats usually run and if he’s on the longer side of the spectrum they might need the extras. Hell, they might need the whole _closet_ ; dude’s the size of a truck, he probably eats like one too. “Hand to God, Jane, I have not seen an omega kick ass so thoroughly since Thor delivered the dark elf smackdown. He keeps going all super-shy on me, too, it’s like . . . the most _destructively_ hot dichotomy, seriously.” 

“I don’t know, there’s something to be said for an omega who’s confident in bed,” Jane says, giving Thor a little smile as she reaches up to pet his hair, and he preens into the contact with a pleased smile of his own. 

“He also flat-out told me he beat them up because he wanted me to take him,” Darcy says, grabbing trail mix and granola bars from the top shelf and beef jerky from the one below it. Jamie definitely looks like the type to appreciate beef jerky. 

“. . . well then,” Jane says, fanning herself with her free hand as her eyebrows shoot up. Thor laughs again, head tipping under her petting and eyes going half-lidded like they always do when Jane’s pheromones spike. Darcy’s are _definitely_ spiking, so she’s sure Jane’s are. 

_“I know, right?”_ she stresses disbelievingly, tossing a box of condoms into the bag and then rifling through the selection of lube just in case. Jamie’s clearly had some shit heat partners, she wouldn’t blame him if he had a little trouble getting wet even heated up. “It’s awful. And by awful I mean amazing, oh my god, and he’s _so hot_ , did I mention that? He smells like iced cinnamon rolls and _sex_.” 

“We noticed,” Jane says, _extremely_ politely. Thor’s laugh is heavier this time, and he curls up around her with it. Definitely responding to pheromone spikes, Darcy decides, trotting over to the kitchen for fruit and at least one actually _cold_ water bottle for Jamie to have if he wants while the others chill up in the mini-fridge. She also gets a few bottled smoothies, some veggies and hummus, and the box of chocolate cheesecake truffles she was saving for this weekend, because _of course_ she gets the chocolate cheesecake truffles, what kind of terrible alpha would have chocolate cheesecake truffles lying around and _not_ give them to their omega? 

Those shits in the alley, probably, and also all of Jamie’s asshole exes who still need tased, which frankly is all the more reason to give him the truffles. 

“We need more truffles,” Darcy decides. 

“Wow, Darcy, you _really_ like this guy,” Jane says, looking surprised. Darcy frowns in confusion, then looks down at her bags and realizes both are full to bursting and she’s still holding a bag of baby carrots and the truffles. 

“Um,” she says, turning pink. “Look, it’s not . . . he’s had shitty heat partners in the past, is all, and when I found him there were these asshole alphas creeping on him and it was--I just really want it to be _nice_ for him, you know?” 

“We’ll get truffles,” Jane promises. 

“You’re my hero,” Darcy says fervently, then stomps on the urge to flee back to her room and double-checks the heat closet for anything she might’ve forgotten instead. For all she knows Jamie hasn’t even gotten into the bath yet, much less gotten anywhere near “relaxed”. “God, Jane, he doesn’t even think he’s pretty. And he’s _so_ pretty! Fuck all his previous heat partners, those fucking knotheads--well, almost all, he had an omega friend he used to be synched up with, they might’ve been decent. But all the alphas, definitely fuck _them_. Are you sure you don’t mind getting the truffles?” 

“We don’t mind, Darcy, it’s not like you’ve never done it for us,” Jane reassures her. “And we’ll get Erik to carry them so they won’t smell like a challenging alpha or rival omega while you two are distracted, if he’s had bad partners. Is there anything else you need?” 

“Truffles,” Darcy repeats, gesturing with both arms as best she can with the bags weighing them down. “Just--he deserves _so many_ truffles, Jane. Although I don’t even know if he _likes_ truffles so maybe some other dessert options would be, uh, a good idea. Chocolates? Pecan clusters? Fuck, I have no idea.” 

“We’ll figure something out,” Jane says, smiling at her. “Don’t worry about it, all right?” 

“All right,” Darcy says, definitely worrying about it.


	2. try everything

Darcy makes one last lap between the closet and fridge, grabs one more box of protein bars, and then accidentally leaves without actually saying goodbye to Jane and Thor. Which is . . . well, she’s been more clear-headed in her life, put it that way. She mentally gives up on herself and just slips back into her room as quietly as she can dragging the bags, meaning to get everything set up and tucked away without disturbing Jamie. 

That plan is torpedoed when she immediately smells distress rising over the scent of vanilla bath bomb. She can hear water lapping at the sides of the tub, but not much else. 

“Jamie? You okay?” she asks warily, hovering outside the bathroom doorway in concern without moving to see inside. Ian had liked her to hang around for his heat baths, but she’s also dated a couple omegas who hadn’t, so she really doesn’t know what to expect from Jamie. 

“I’m not--done,” he says, uncertain. 

“That’s okay, me neither,” Darcy says. She thinks longingly of her taser for the umpteenth time. “Take your time with everything, I’m gonna set up in here, okay? No rush.” 

“. . . okay,” Jamie murmurs. Darcy thinks about taking a quick peek through the door, but is not actually rude enough to do that to an omega she barely knows and instead gets to work unpacking the supply bags into the mini-fridge and the drawers under her bed. She tries not to rush, but it’s hard to take her time. 

She doesn’t change the sheets--any replacements she’s got would just smell like detergent and who-knows-who from the laundry room, which is just not something to make any omega put up with when they’re all heat-sensitive in an unfamiliar place--but she does remake the bed so it at least looks nice and grabs the extra pillows out of the bottom of her closet. She’s met a few alphas and betas who don’t bother keeping nesting pillow around, but Ian was always really big on it and Thor’s borrowed them a couple times when he had a heat where just Jane's supply didn’t feel like enough. 

She also hangs the canopy curtains she usually doesn’t bother with, just in case. She figures Jamie can arrange the pillows and blankets how he likes and draw the curtains if he wants, and if not, having the option never hurt anyone. Probably. Presumably. She’s not sure how it _could_ , anyway. 

Darcy manages to kill a little more time with general tidying up and hiding of embarrassing floor-laundry and the like and then sets up a few drinks and snacks on the nightstand before finally glancing back to the bathroom. Every omega’s a little different, obviously, and there’s no way to know how long Jamie wants to take or if he wants to be alone or have company or . . . really, any number of things. 

Also, judging by how he acted about it all, there’s no way to know if _he_ even knows those things. Which is its own problem, honestly. 

So basically Darcy ends up hovering just past the bathroom door with no idea what to do and no idea what the omega on the other side of it _wants_ her to do. The water’s still lapping a little against the tub, but she can’t hear anything else, and Jamie’s pheromones are delicious, but not very helpful. 

“Can I come in?” she asks finally, because she’s sure as shit not going to figure it out one way or the other without asking. 

“Uh--ah-huh,” Jamie says, his voice unexpectedly breathy. Darcy peeks around the corner, opening her mouth to say . . . well. She’d been going to say _something_ , she’s sure, but for the life of her she can’t remember what it’d been now. 

The ridiculously huge _(thank you, Tony, and also FUCK YOU, TONY, Darcy thinks)_ tub is full to the top and the bath bomb left the water glittery but also milk-white opaque everywhere the bubbles aren’t covering, which is just _cruel_. About all she can see of Jamie is his head and shoulders and the one leg he has propped up on the side of the tub, and somehow that’s still enough that she has to readjust her knot in her jeans. Everybody says female alphas’ clits aren’t as big or as up for it as male alphas’ cocks are, but everybody is fucking _stupid_. 

Also, everybody has clearly not had to contend with Jamie Thacket all wet and glittery with his hair slicked back and the dirt washed off and skin all freshly shaved and flushed from the steam. 

The metal hand apparently goes all the way up, too. 

Fuck. He is _so_ pretty. 

“Holy crap,” Darcy says before she thinks better of it, eyes widening and pheromones spiking, and Jamie makes a sharp little noise and tips his head back against the back of the tub, squirming in his seat. For one super, super flattering second Darcy thinks that’s just a reaction to her pheromones, but then she notices the slight flex of his shoulders and realizes--“Oh,” she sighs dreamily, not quite able to repress the shiver as she grips the doorjamb. 

He’s _touching_ himself. 

Well, that’s officially the most distracting thing that has ever happened to her. 

“You said--you said try everything,” he says breathlessly, then bites his lip to muffle a soft little sound. Darcy glazes over briefly at the sight and sound and then actually registers what he just said and remembers that yes, yes she _did_ spring for the heat bath basket with the optional waterproof vibrator, didn’t she, oh _God_. 

“I did say that, yes,” she manages, head swimming with alpha instincts that are all screaming _omega! beautiful omega! my beautiful omega, my beautiful omega touching himself for me, touching himself because I SAID!_ “Oh man, did I . . . did I _ever_.” 

Jamie moans, slipping down in the water as his head tips back further. His toes curl against the side of the tub and Darcy’s brain shorts out a little. 

“God, look at you,” she marvels lowly, sitting carefully on the side of the tub. His eyes stay just open enough to watch her, which admittedly might be a threat assessment but is hard to parse as anything but a turn-on. “You look so good. So good for _me_ , Jamie, is that how it feels? Like you’re so good?” 

“I . . .” Jamie hesitates, shivering, and Darcy resists the urge to stroke his hair soothingly. He might not feel ready to be touched yet, even if he let her into the bathroom. “I don’t--I don’t know, I . . .” 

“That’s okay, you don’t have to,” Darcy says, mostly to chase away the slight pinch of stress creeping onto his face as he tries to figure out how to answer her. Stress is pretty much the _opposite_ point of a heat bath. “I’m super happy you like the basket, though. Like, holy shit, I am so glad I made that investment.” 

“It’s--it doesn’t hurt,” Jamie says, head ducked just enough to avoid eye contact. It takes way, way too much effort for Darcy not to alpha-growl at hearing that. And not the _good_ kind of alpha-growl. 

“Good,” she says instead. “That means it’s working.” 

“Mm.” Jamie ducks his head a little lower and Darcy tries not to stare _too_ much at the flex of his shoulders or the wet split in his hair where the bare back of his neck shows. There’s no trace of bruises or scars there, no proof of him ever keeping a single alpha’s bite. “It . . . it’s warm. Inside me. Makes _me_ feel--feel warm.” 

“Is that all right?” Darcy asks, resisting the urge to reach out again. Jamie bites his lip and nods roughly, head dropping back against the tub and eyes finally squeezing shut. He’s shuddering hard enough to make the water ripple. “Okay,” Darcy says, dropping her voice a little lower--putting the soothing in her tone, if she can’t touch him yet. “You’re doing so great, Jamie, you look so good like this. You’re so sweet to let me see you this way.” 

“S-sweet,” Jamie repeats slowly, more like he doesn’t believe her than like he’s agreeing. Darcy goes with it; she can’t _help_ it. 

“ _So_ sweet, honey,” she croons, leaning closer to him but still not touching. “Like I could eat you right up, all sticky and sugary and fresh-baked. I bet you taste amazing. I bet you taste better than anything.” 

Jamie doesn’t say anything this time, just screws his eyes shut tighter and starts breathing harder as he sinks down to nearly chin-level in the bath, leg hitching up higher against the side of the tub. Water laps against his skin and leaves fresh flecks of glitter across the pulse in his throat and the exposed inside of his thigh, and Darcy bites her lip, alpha instincts wanting to lick it away so _bad_. 

“Are you close?” she asks. Concentrating on talking helps. “Are you gonna let me see?” 

“Y-yeah,” Jamie stutters roughly, burying his face against his flesh and blood shoulder. The metal one is flexing faster and faster and Darcy thinks about just how articulate those fingers seem to be. About just what they might be _doing_. 

“Are you touching your cock?” she asks. She can’t see; asking’s the only way she’s going to find out. “Or are your fingers inside you? If you press the toy against your hand can you feel the vibrations through them?” 

“Y-y- _yes_ ,” Jamie chokes, his eyes snapping back open to stare up at her, big and bright and so _damn_ pretty. 

“Do it again, omega,” Darcy says immediately, because she doesn’t know what he’s actually doing to himself but what it made him _look_ like . . . yeah. He should definitely do that again. And he definitely _does_ , the way his eyes widen and breath catches. “There you go. God, look how _good_ you are. Don’t stop, okay? Keep going just like that.” 

Jamie nods mutely, still staring up at her with those big pretty eyes as his head rolls back on his neck, shoulder flexing faster and body shivering. Darcy wants to skim a hand down the inside of his thigh and dip it under the water to find out just exactly what he’s doing down there, but not doing that might be even better than _actually_ doing it would be. 

She also wants to kiss him, but that kind of comes from a different place. 

“There you go,” she says again. “Keep it up, honey, you’re doing so good. I want to see how pretty you are when you come. Can I see? Are you gonna show me?” 

“I--I can’t, I--” Jamie chokes off, then snaps his mouth shut and grits out pleading noises through his teeth instead. Darcy croons back soothingly, tracing a hand in the air over his temple but not moving to actually touch him. He hasn’t invited her to yet. 

She repeats the tracing and Jamie turns towards it, the noises he’s making getting a little softer but no less pleading. 

And okay-- _that_. That’s an invitation. 

“Yes you can,” Darcy murmurs, and smooths the damp hair back off the side of his face. Jamie makes a strangled, _gorgeous_ sound and tenses up all over, then goes slack and soft and shuddery underneath her hand, blinking up at her with wet, dazed eyes. She doesn’t have to ask if he’s come. 

He is just--God, but he is just the fucking _prettiest_ thing. 

“That was so good, Jamie, I’m so _proud_ of you,” Darcy croons, stroking a hand back over his hair again. Jamie noises weakly in response, staying slumped against the back of the tub and watching her through heavy-lidded eyes. The expression is looking less and less like a threat assessment and more and more like he’s starving for the attention. “How do you feel?” 

“Warm,” Jamie says quietly, leaning into her hand. He shivers one more time, then very carefully lifts his flesh and blood arm out of the water and sets the turned-off vibrator on the far edge of the tub. Darcy resists staring at it, but just barely. She definitely does _not_ resist salivating, because even with the water and bath bomb perfume the thing _reeks_ of Jamie’s pheromones and slick. 

God, he smells so good. Forget apple pie, forget mead and metal, forget marshmallow and chocolate: this one, _this_ is the scent. 

“That’s awesome, Jamie,” she murmurs, scratching her nails just a little against his scalp. He presses harder into the contact, nuzzling into it like a cat, and Darcy obliges, dragging her nails again. “You did really good. Does the water still feel nice?” 

“It’s warm,” Jamie says, glancing up at her uncertainly. Darcy smiles at him partially because he’s pretty as hell and partially because he looks like a person who really, _really_ needs smiled at more often. 

“Yeah?” she asks. Jamie’s silent for a moment, then nods. Darcy busies herself drawing her fingers through his hair, wondering if he’s always this quiet when he’s in heat. “Your hair feels really nice. Can I comb it for you? Would you like that?” 

“. . . yes,” Jamie says slowly, tipping his head. 

“Thank you. You give me such nice things, omega, you’re so good to me,” Darcy praises, and Jamie bites his lip, sinking low in the water again. Darcy strokes his hair back one more time and then gets to her feet and gets her comb off the sink, coming back to sit next to his shoulder. Another omega she’d probably have sat behind without thinking, but Jamie . . . yeah, no. Not so much. 

She telegraphs her movements very carefully as she rolls up the sleeves of her sweater, then starts combing through his hair even more carefully than that, wanting to avoid any pulling or yanking. Jamie tucks both legs under the water and stays still and quiet, not moving at all. The tangles aren’t too bad, especially not after the conditioner, and they don’t take long to get through at all. Jamie is slowly relaxing again under the slow pulls of the comb, though, so Darcy keeps it up until he slumps back completely against the back of the tub and starts making soft noises that _almost_ sound content. 

“Look at you, so pretty,” Darcy hums quietly, combing Jamie’s hair back over his nape. The teeth of her comb drag against the back of his neck and he makes a soft, startled little noise and--God, pushes back _into_ it. Like it’s real teeth; a proper alpha’s bite. 

Like he might if it were _her_ teeth, maybe. 

“You’re so _sweet_ , omega,” she sighs, pressing the teeth of her comb down again lightly. Jamie breathes out hard and drops his head forward, skin flushing again. “ _So_ sweet, God, just look at you. You moved into that like I was already knotting you.” 

“You’re going to knot me,” Jamie says, biting his lip again. 

“Uh--unless you don’t want me to,” Darcy replies awkwardly, a little confused. She’d thought they’d worked that out, but she’s not operating on total hindbrain here, if he’s changed his mind she’s not going to complain. Well, maybe she’ll mourn at Jane later, admittedly, but not at _him_. 

“No, I--” Jamie hesitates, then tips his head back to look up at her. “ _You’re_ going to knot me. Right?” 

“. . . yes,” Darcy agrees slowly, not entirely sure what he’s--

“ _Just_ you,” Jamie says, expression guarded. 

. . . Darcy fucking _hates_ people. 

“Just me,” she confirms, pulling the comb through his hair again. “I’m the one you picked for for last alpha standing, right? And you made yourself all sweet and pretty for me, and you did so good coming for me. So I’m going to take care of you. If you want me to knot you, I will; if you don’t, I’ll just help you get nested and check in every couple hours to make sure you’ve got everything you need ‘til your heat’s up.” 

“But I’ll be in heat,” Jamie says, his expression turning confused. 

“Um. Yeah?” Darcy says, trying really hard not to mirror said expression. She’s the alpha, she’s supposed to at least _pretend_ to know what she’s doing when an omega’s showing her their vulnerable spots. “That’s, uh . . . kinda the point?” 

“If I’m in heat you won’t be able to stop yourself,” Jamie says, uncertain again. “That’s--how it works.” 

Darcy pulls the comb through his hair. Pulls the comb through his hair again. Her furious protective pheromones won’t end well in this situation, if she lets them flare up. 

She really _wants_ to let them flare up. 

“That’s really not how it works,” she says finally, gathering his hair all together and gently squeezing the water out. 

“. . . right,” Jamie murmurs, his voice going a little vague. He slips lower in the bath and Darcy twists his hair up against the back of his head and holds it there to keep it out of the bubbles. The water’s still warm, but not steaming anymore, and Jamie’s pheromones are getting stronger, sticky cinnamon and sugary icing delicately accented by the vanilla oils from the heat basket. 

He’s also still covered in glitter, which is doing it _embarrassingly_ hard for Darcy. 

Really, though, she just wants to do right by the guy. Whatever he wants, he deserves it, and she wants to do the best she can to give it to him. She’s just not sure how to get that across. 

Then again, she reflects, there’s always the direct approach. 

“Jamie,” she says, letting the teeth of her comb just barely brush against the back of his neck. “I want to do right by you, okay? You just tell me what that is, and I’ll do it.” 

“I want to get out of the bath,” Jamie says quietly. It’s not exactly an answer, but Darcy’s not judging. She gets up and puts the comb away, and Jamie stands up before she can clear out to give him privacy. He’s . . . he’s very pretty, still. 

And the glitter definitely got _everywhere_. 

Well, if he isn’t feeling shy about her seeing him naked, she figures that means she should be taking care of him. In a more immediate sense, she means. 

Her robe won’t fit him, unfortunately, so instead Darcy waits until he’s used the heat basket lotion and then wraps him up in her biggest, fluffiest towel and dries his hair with her _second_ -biggest, fluffiest towel, trying to be gentle about it without coming across as patronizing. The “gentle” part still doesn’t really come naturally but Jamie seems to think anything not outright _awful_ counts for that, so . . . yeah, no, she really can’t even look at that like it’s a positive. Not even a little. 

She leads him into the bedroom, hoping he’ll be all right with her emergency heat set-up, although he doesn’t give her anything to go on once they get there. He doesn’t really seem to know what to do about the bed at first, but Darcy waits quietly in the corner chair until he finally starts arranging the pillows and blankets with a precision that’s almost painful to watch. 

No, Darcy thinks as she watches Jamie hesitantly stack pillows against the headboard, “almost” is not the word. Very painful. Desperately painful. _Agonizingly_ painful. An omega Jamie’s age should have nesting down to an art, even with unfamiliar supplies; this is like watching a little kid who’s still learning how to play with blocks try to build something. She leaves him to it without comment, though, and eventually the bed takes shape as a nest. It’s a bare bones one, more function than form, but it looks sturdy as fuck and smells like needy omega, so she’s sure as hell not complaining. 

Her whole _room_ smells like needy omega now, actually, which is . . . which is definitely a thing, yeah. Even if Jamie decides he doesn’t want her knot she’s pretty sure he’s going to be influencing her spank bank fantasies for a damn long while, not in the least because it’s gonna smell like him _in_ here for a damn long while. 

Also, there is going to be glitter literally fucking _everywhere_ , Jesus. 

She watches him lean over the bed and tries not to fixate on the back of his neck. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of omegas who go through heat without bonding with the alpha helping them out--often enough it’s a beta or another omega with them anyway, and ninety percent of the time bond-bites only stick between alphas and omegas. Every now and then a particularly aggressive or receptive beta manages to either give or get one, but that’s about it as far as she’s ever heard. Even alpha and omega pairs have a hard time maintaining them outside of heat, since heat’s really what they’re _for_ \--a proper bond bite soothes and settles the omega and directs the alpha’s pampering and protective instincts, even if just for the length of the heat. 

But Jamie’s neck is bare. Darcy can’t tell if that’s because he wasn’t receptive to his last alpha or beta or was with his omega friend or just toughed out his last heat alone. The latter’d make the most sense, unfortunately--a lot of omegas get depressed when they haven’t had a heat partner in a while, same as a lot of alphas get erratic when they’ve spent too many ruts alone. But being depressed is no doubt preferable to putting up with asshole alphas like the ones that have gotten at Jamie. 

She just wants to know what he wants. 

She just wants to _give_ him what he wants. 

“Good?” Darcy asks as Jamie finally steps back from the bed, his expression uncertain. 

“I--yes,” he says, frowning a little despite the answer. 

“Missing something?” she guesses. Jamie rubs at his face, looking frustrated. 

“I don’t remember,” he mutters. “It’s not--I don’t know. I used to . . . I used to do it different, I think.” 

“We’ve still got more pillows,” Darcy suggests, glancing at one of the ones Jamie dropped on the floor. He only used about half of her supply. “You could add stuff.” 

“It’s not--my friend,” Jamie interrupts himself, like it’s just occurring to him. “My friend and I nested together.” 

“Yeah? How’d you do that?” Darcy asks, trying not to glaze over inappropriately. _Again_. Look, it’s not her fault if omegas nesting together is an extremely popular subject in softcore porn, okay? Okay. 

“Our hands,” Jamie says, curling his fingers distractedly as he looks at the nest again. “Heat can’t tell the difference between that and a knot anyway.” 

“Uh--not _exactly_ what I meant,” Darcy manages, turning bright red. Oh _god_ , this omega is going to kill her. In a really, really good way, but--yeah, oh _god_. “Here, uh, why don’t we try it out and see if you like it. You can always do it over if it’s not right.” 

“Okay,” Jamie says, looking at the bed again. He doesn’t move towards it, so Darcy does instead, carefully crawling between the pillows. Jamie follows her a second later and draws the curtains half-closed around the bed, then puts a hand on her hip to guide her and put her where he wants her in the nest, which would be super fucking distracting even if he _didn’t_ smell so sweet and ripe and like the bath products _she_ gave him. 

Also, he’s officially abandoned the towel. Speaking of super fucking distracting things. 

Well. She’s definitely not complaining. 

He’s the only thing around that deserves her attention right now anyway.


	3. chocolate cheesecake truffles

Jamie settles Darcy into the middle of the bed with her shoulders against the pillow-covered headboard, swinging a leg over her thighs and carefully positioning her like he thinks maybe she’ll slide right off the bed if he doesn’t. For a moment Darcy wonders if he might be about to unzip her pants and sit down on her clit just like that, which as a thought process is definitely getting her clit in condition to get sat on. 

The intent look on his face is also playing pretty heavily into that, mind. Darcy’s been stared at less fixatedly by people who were trying to _kill_ her. 

“Look at you,” she says breathlessly, mouth quirking up at the corner as she settles comfortably into the pillows. They’re already at basically the perfect angle, which is both pretty great and yet another turn-on. “You did good, sweetie, we fit in here just right. Super nice nest.” 

“It’s close enough,” Jamie murmurs quietly, shifting back. He puts his hands on Darcy’s stomach and pushes her sweater and the shirt underneath up to her ribs. She growls softly in satisfaction, letting her fingers skim up his mismatched forearms. Both are still warm from the bath, the biological one soft and sweet-smelling and the metal one gleaming bright. Jamie holds still for the contact for a moment, then shifts as his posture changes, moving backwards. For a moment Darcy thinks he’s going to kiss her stomach, but instead he goes right for her fly. Mind, she’s all for that too--or at least, she’s all for that right up until she notices his shoulders are starting to hunch. 

Yeah, that’s . . . that’s not very subtle, Darcy thinks. 

“Hold up,” she says as inspiration strikes. Jamie pauses, glancing up to her face with a little frown. “Just--c’mere, come back up here for a sec,” she tells him, squirming onto her side so she can reach the little box of chocolate cheesecake truffles on the nightstand. “No rush, right? We’ve got your whole heat, might as well take our time with things. And you were so good for me in the bath, you deserve something for that.” 

“. . . I deserve something?” Jamie repeats slowly, shifting back up to straddle Darcy’s thighs again as she opens the box. He’s frowning, just barely, but she has the cure for that. 

“Say ‘ahhh’,” Darcy instructs, picking out the prettiest truffle and holding it up. Jamie’s frown turns confused. 

“‘Ahhh’?” he repeats uncertainly, and Darcy beams up at him and pops the truffle into his mouth. He looks startled for all of a second--a second that she spends thinking of tasers--and then looks startled in a completely different way, his hand flying up to his mouth. 

“You like?” Darcy asks, grinning wider as she picks out another. 

“Mmm,” Jamie manages, still covering his mouth and clearly unwilling to actually swallow yet, his eyes wide. 

“Go on, there’s more,” Darcy encourages him, skimming her free hand up his thigh. A hot little thrill goes through her as he listens and actually bites down on the truffle, splitting the chocolate outer shell to the cheesecake, and she smiles at the disbelieving little noise he makes around it. “There you go. So _good_ for me, sweetie, you listen so well.” 

“It’s--what was that?” Jamie manages, touching his mouth. His face is flushed. 

“Chocolate cheesecake truffles,” Darcy says, holding up the next one and not quite able to keep the grin back. “Want another?” 

“. . . yes, alpha,” Jamie says, his eyes flicking down between them. Darcy wants to kiss him, but maybe not yet. 

“Lay back, okay?” she says instead. He’s too tense for being on top of her; he’s suppressing his own pheromones with the stress, and she wouldn’t wish a pheromone-crush hangover on _anyone_ , most especially not an omega she’s promised to take care of. Calming him down is definitely for the best. 

“Okay,” Jamie replies as he shifts to the side, hesitating momentarily before laying himself flat against the blankets, head just barely propped up against one of the pillows cradling Darcy’s hip. The position makes Darcy feel very, _very_ alpha and also makes her want to cradle him in her lap. She settles for tapping the truffle against his lips and dropping it into his mouth as it falls open in easy response. 

She is definitely not imagining that he flushes again when the chocolate hits his tongue. 

“There you go,” Darcy murmurs approvingly, lifting a hand to stroke over his hair. Jamie melts under the contact, eyes going heavy, and she hums in admiration at the sight. “So sweet, omega. Thank you so much for coming with me, I’m so glad you’re letting me take care of you. I know it’s been rough for you out there, you’re so _brave_ to trust me like this.” 

Jamie whines very, very softly at the next stroke of Darcy’s hand, and she lets her nails drag just a little on his scalp. The next whine comes out stronger and he tips his head into her fingers. 

“Good boy,” she says, and Jamie moans, rolling towards her but not pushing in quite close enough to make contact. Darcy drags her nails as gently as she can and he finally, _finally_ starts smelling properly of his pheromones again, warm and sugar-sweet and cinnamon-sticky in her nose. “Oh, _such_ a good, brave boy,” she sighs, smoothing her hand down to cup the back of his neck. “You smell so sweet getting all heated up for me, omega, it makes me want to dip you in milk and eat you _up_.” 

Darcy’s only sort of exaggerating that; her hindbrain wants to kiss Jamie all over and feed him up fat and sweet on truffles and fruit and then eat him out until he feels as good as he deserves to, make sure he’s as happy and taken care of as he can possibly be. 

Actually, her hindbrain wants a lot _more_ than that, up to and including a mating bite and giving the much-neglected omega in her den the bellyful of babies his pheromones are so obviously begging for, but that--that is a whole other thing, is that, and also the reason she made sure to bring the whole _box_ of condoms. 

“So sweet,” Darcy murmurs again, letting her nails prick the back of Jamie’s neck. He presses back into them even quicker than he did for the comb, his pheromones spiking, and a hot stab of arousal cuts through her gut as her own respond in kind. Jamie starts panting, his body curling in on itself to better bare the nape of his neck to her nails, and Darcy takes the invitation and presses them in harder. Jamie pants harder in turn, his hands curling in against his stomach, and Darcy rumbles low in her throat; he whines in reply, eyes squeezed shut. 

He smells like an entire goddamn _bakery_ right now. And he’s so sweet and responsive that he’s like that just off her voice and nails, all riled up and pretty from nothing more than that. 

“God, I’m just so glad you picked me to take care of you, gorgeous,” Darcy rasps lowly, scooting down the bed so she can lean over to press a kiss against his temple and sliding her free hand down his side. “I’m so glad you’re _letting_ me take care of you. You’ve already been so good for me and you’re _still_ trying to be better, do you know how happy that makes me? How proud I am of you right now?” 

“Please,” Jamie mumbles, hiding his face against the nearest pillow. Darcy kisses his temple again, hand resting on his hip. 

“Anything you want,” she promises. 

“Can I--” Jamie hesitates, turning his head just enough to look at her with one of those big sad eyes again, and Darcy kisses his exposed cheek in hopes of encouraging him. His pheromones spike _hard_ , which is honestly not actually what she was trying to do, but nothing she’s going to complain about either. 

_“Oh,”_ she breathes, and he presses in against her side and whimpers into her shoulder. “Oh, sweetie, that’s so--you’re so _good_ to me.” 

“Darcy,” Jamie moans, shivering all the way up his spine. She swears fireworks go off behind her eyes just from the way he says her name. 

“Gorgeous, you’re so gorgeous, Jamie, you’re such a fucking _treasure_ ,” she groans back, her nails digging in on his neck and hip and hindbrain-mouth getting away from her. “I want to put my teeth in you, I want to put my _knot_ in you, tell me what you want, let me give it to you.” 

“I want--” Jamie hesitates, his voice going a little strange, and then continues, quieter--”I want another truffle.” It doesn’t occur to Darcy that that’s kind of a weird request for the situation until she’s already basically thrown herself back at the nightstand, alpha instinct to provide well into overdrive, and by then she’s already got the box anyway. 

Whatever; Jamie can have whatever he _wants_ from her, far as she’s concerned. 

“Open up,” Darcy coaxes as she picks out another truffle and holds it up to him, and Jamie stares up at her for a moment before opening his mouth. She places the truffle on his tongue and he makes a soft noise and tucks his face into her shoulder again as he chews it up. Darcy nuzzles his hair and plants another kiss against his temple, and his pheromones spike again even without her nails against his neck. “Better every time, omega, god. Can I kiss you? Will you let me do that for you?” 

“You already--” Jamie starts, frowning, and then seems to realize what she’s actually talking about and stops himself, his eyes flicking down in embarrassment. “Oh. You mean--okay.” 

“Thank you so _much_ ,” Darcy murmurs, immediately ducking her head to press her lips against his. Dwelling on the embarrassment isn’t going to help Jamie relax. Her instincts are right, for once--Jamie immediately goes soft and pliant under the kiss, head tipping back sweet as anything for her. In this close his pheromones smell even better, enough to almost entirely overpower the vanilla perfumes and the slight hints of chocolate and cheesecake, and Darcy sighs between their mouths and cups his face in her hands. 

He is so, _so_ sweet. 

“So good,” she praises, and kisses him again. He kisses back, his biological hand coming up hesitantly to curve around her shoulder, and Darcy rumbles encouragingly and flicks her tongue against his lower lip. Jamie inhales sharply, then follows the next flick of her tongue with a kittenish little lick of his own that makes Darcy’s gut burn all the way through. She cups the back of his neck with her hand and he lets out a little mewl, pushing back into the grip and tightening his grip on her shoulder in return. 

Jamie is a really good kisser, especially as he relaxes into it. He keeps his metal hand off her but the biological one he pets between her shoulder blades with, and he stretches needily when she strokes her own fingers down his ribs and over the vulnerable side of his waist, skin soft and smooth over the muscle. He’s so obviously strong enough to pick her up one-handed but he’s so sweet and _easy_ under her hands and mouth, and Darcy’s not going to lie, knowing that does a _lot_ for her. 

Not as much as the warm and rising sweetness of his scent increasing with every little brush of her lips, though. 

“There you go, that’s it. Just like that,” she rumbles, nipping lightly at his mouth. “So pretty and responsive for me. Just relax for me, sweetie, let me take care of you. You’re so _good_ at letting me take care of you, make me wanna do it for _days_. And I will, too, I’ll take care of you as long as you let me.” 

“Okay,” Jamie breathes out roughly, pressing up closer against her. He’s shivering again, his breath coming fast and his skin a lot hotter than the bath left it. Darcy’s sweater is too heavy and her jeans are _definitely_ too constricting, her clit already pressing too tight against the zipper, but there’s no way in hell she’s moving back to fix the problem. “Okay, I--please take care of me.” 

God, listening to him talk fucking _hurts_ , she thinks, burying her face in his hair. 

“I will,” she swears, hooking one of his legs with her own and pushing a hand over his hip. “I’ll take _such_ good care of you, honey, I’ll make you feel so good.” 

“So _hot_ ,” Jamie whines, pushing into her again and digging his fingers in against her back. “I feel--I don’t like your clothes, please, they--they don’t feel--” 

“I got you,” Darcy promises, immediately peeling her sweater off over her head. She should’ve thought of that herself; wool and denim isn’t exactly the kindest thing for an oversensitive omega to be trying to cozy up into. The second her sweater and shirt are off her chest Jamie ducks in low and wraps his biological arm tight around her back, hiding his face against her breasts. “There you go. _So_ brave for me, omega, asking for what you need.” 

Skimming off her jeans and socks is a little harder to pull off without disturbing Jamie, but she does the best she can and it works out in the end. He’s giving her chest little kisses and kitten-licks the whole time, his hand pressed flat against the bared back of her shoulders, and everything about the gesture makes Darcy want to fuck him through the mattress and also wrap him up in cotton candy and kindness. 

She kicks her jeans off her feet and then off the bed for good measure and Jamie noises up at her and tips his head back in mute but obvious request for a kiss, which Darcy immediately obliges. 

“I love it when you ask me for what you want,” she sighs, lifting her hands to flick open the front clasp of her bra. Jamie makes a soft little sound of surprise and slips his biological hand underneath the fabric to cup one of her breasts gently--much more gently than she’s been managing to touch him, as hard as she’s been trying, and Darcy bites her lip and wriggles out of her bra quick so she can push her hand down his side again. “I really do, you look so _pretty_ when you get it. I want to see you that way all the time.” 

“More,” Jamie manages hoarsely, licking his lips, and Darcy can’t help the growl of pleasure at hearing it. She grabs his face and kisses him again and he whimpers between their mouths, pushing into her pleadingly. His jaw is bare under her fingers, shaved clean of stubble and softened with lotion--from the razor she gave him, the lotion she gave him; done because of and for _her_ \--and she wants to put her mouth all over him. His chest’s bare, and when she pushes a hand up it she wonders if he shaved that for her too. 

“Where else can I kiss you?” she asks him, flicking a thumb over his nipple meaningfully. Jamie whines again, nodding furiously. 

“There,” he says. “Kiss my--kiss my chest, alpha, please.” 

Darcy rumbles approvingly and slides down the bed to do just that, guiding Jamie onto his back as she goes. She slides her hands up his sides and and he starts moaning the moment her lips brush his chest, before she even gets anywhere near his nipples again. By the time she’s got her mouth against one, he’s already shaking. 

God, it has so obviously been so _long_ since anyone treated him right during a heat. It makes her want to make it perfect for him, and also kick some assholes’ asses. She lets the feeling simmer, knowing it’ll help her scent the room with _fuck-off_ pheromones and hoping that Jamie will settle more with the reassurance that she’s not letting anyone else near him. She’s never been so grateful to have a strong scent--everyone tells her it’s spicy and sharp and actually _burns_ a little to breathe in, which embarrassed her right up until she got to college and found out just how many omegas love the clinging, _claiming_ nature of her rut and the way it makes other alphas avoid their dens entirely for days after. 

Jamie likes it too, she thinks, from how many times he’s put his face against her throat. She hopes her scent clings to him when he leaves, tells all those creeps on the street to fuck right off and leave him in peace. Tells _everyone_ to fuck right off, that he’s _hers_ , she’s the one he picked and wants, the one he whines and whimpers and bares the back of his neck for. 

She hopes that maybe a little too much, considering. 

But Jamie--he _deserves_ too much. He deserves everything he can stand. 

Darcy curls her fingers against Jamie’s sides and drags her tongue across his nipple in a long, broad sweep, and he gasps sharply and moves up into it, his thighs coming up to squeeze against her sides. She growls in low, rut-brained satisfaction at the pressure and he starts moaning again, head dropping back against the pillows. His skin’s fever-hot under her mouth as she works him over with teeth and tongue and the barest brushes of her lips, and only gets hotter under the attention. He’s so obviously sensitive here--every little nip and flick results in another gasp, another needy little noise, another rush of cinnamon-sweet pheromones, and the longer she touches him the louder he gets. 

And the harder _she_ gets. Her clit’s already tenting her panties and no doubt about five seconds from dripping precome. Stopping to take them off would mean taking her mouth and hands off Jamie’s chest, though, and she hasn’t left nearly enough proof she was there yet--and, more importantly, he hasn’t stopped pressing _into_ them yet. 

Stopping something he likes is about the last damn thing Darcy is ever going to do, she thinks. 

When she looks he’s hard too, his pretty little cock curving up close to the heavy length of her clit where it’s straining the fabric of her underwear. She’d barely have to move at all to let them grind together and ruin her panties between them, and it’d be only slightly further to rub her clit against his hole instead. She knows he’s wet; she can _smell_ it, sugar-sweet and so much. He’d soak right through her panties like they weren’t there at all. He’s already come once, too--she could just shove them down and slide into him right now without any effort at all. 

Except he _deserves_ the effort. 

“Jamie,” Darcy groans breathlessly, kissing his chest again and dragging her nails down the flat, broad expanse of his stomach. There’s probably glitter on her tongue. She _wants_ there to be glitter on her tongue. “Jamie, sweetie, what do you need? What do you want?” 

“Warm,” he rasps, knocking his head back as she bites at a nipple. “Wanna be, I want to be _warm_ , Darcy.” 

“Like before, baby?” she asks, thinking of the bath and skimming her fingers down over the curve of his hip to the inside of his thigh. He jerks underneath her with a cracked whine, legs immediately falling open, and she kisses his chest again. “Yeah, like before. It felt good in the bath, right? Can I make you feel good like that too?” 

_“Please,”_ Jamie chokes, face screwed up in a near-pained expression and hands gripping the blankets tight. Darcy leans up just enough to drop a kiss on his cheek, her fingers smoothing up his thigh. She rubs the pad of her thumb down behind his balls and brushes lightly over his hole, earning a moan that’s just as sweet as his pheromones. 

“Good boy, so good for me,” she croons. The noise he makes this time is closer to a sob than anything else, and he spreads his legs wider for her pleadingly. She was right, he’s already wet enough to be dripping, and her thumb slides easy as anything in his slick. She’d tease a little with another omega, probably, circle and rub their hole and use it as an excuse to rile them up, but Jamie--no, not him. 

Jamie deserves exactly what he wants the damn _moment_ he wants it. 

“My good boy,” Darcy croons again, pushing her middle finger into him. His body eats it right up, greedy and needy, and he yelps when she crooks it inside of him. She pushes in another finger without waiting--he’s so soft and wet that there’s no need to--and he slicks up even more under the attention. 

Yeah, she definitely didn’t need to bring the lube. She did not need to bring the lube at _all_. 

Darcy rocks her fingers and Jamie moves into them urgently, digs his elbows into the bed and jerks his head up to kiss and bite at her breasts as his slick soaks her hand, and she rumbles low and pleased and pushes her chest into his mouth. He _reeks_ of heat, no sign of stress suppression at all, and he’s so wet and eager underneath her that she thinks she could slide her whole hand into him with hardly any work at all and take care of him just how his friend used to, if he wanted it that way. 

“Is it good?” she asks anyway, crooking her fingers again and drawing out another yelp. It's better to be sure, with everything else. “Is this what you need, gorgeous, am I giving you what you want?” 

“Yes, yes yes _yes_ ,” Jamie moans into her skin, his shoulders shaking with tension as he struggles to keep himself up. Darcy plants a hand on his chest and pushes; he collapses under it immediately, back hitting the mattress hard. She follows him down and kisses his chest again, free hand pinching one nipple while she closes her teeth over the other and fingers fucking deeper into him as she works in a third one, and he pulls his knees up and _keens_ for her. “Alpha, alpha, oh fuck, oh _alpha_!” 

“That’s my sweet boy, so good for me,” she praises, crooking her fingers again so he shakes and whines for them, thrusting quick and steady with them to give him what he needs. “Look how gorgeous you are, look how much you _give_ me, look how much you let me give _you_. Are you warm, baby, is this what you wanted?” 

_“Alpha!”_ Jamie wails again as he throws his head back and comes all over himself on nothing more than that, cock striping his stomach and hole gushing slick over her palm with a pheromone rush that makes her so dizzy she might just black out a little. The feel of his body desperately trying to lock her fingers is like a punch to the gut, and the throbbing ache in her clit is enough to make her groan out loud. 

She would definitely taze every other alpha who’s touched him. She would kill that fucking _mastodon_ , even. 

“Oh, omega, that was so _perfect_ ,” Darcy husks, stroking his chest as she carefully slips her fingers out of him. Jamie gives a weak whine at the loss, his eyes slitting open dazedly to stare up at her, and she shifts up to stroke his face and throat. She wants to lick her fingers clean almost _painfully_ , but they haven’t even talked about their medical histor--

Jamie catches her wrist in his biological hand and licks his slick off her palm. Darcy’s higher thought processes short out completely. 

“Fuck,” she says breathlessly. He glances up at her face as he sucks her fingers into his mouth, his tongue not at _all_ kitten-ish this time, and Darcy shudders so hard she feels it in her _teeth_ and lets herself lay down atop him. His come is sweet and slippery between their bodies and they fit together just right, his Adonis belt the perfect crook for her clit to settle into and his cock soft and sugar-sticky against the curve of her hip, his hole dripping wet and warm against her thigh. 

Her underwear is definitely ruined. 

“You were so good,” Darcy praises, watching him lick her fingers clean with hazy-eyed dedication. She’s probably looking pretty hazy-eyed herself. “Look how _good_ you are, omega, I love it. I bet that tastes so good, wish I could taste you too.” 

“You could,” Jamie says as he lets her fingers slip out of his mouth, expression slanting hesitant again. “I can’t--I’m clean, I mean.” Darcy’s clit twitches _embarrassingly_ hard against him at that, and Jamie bites his lip roughly, his fingers curling a little tighter around her wrist. She moves her thigh up against him out of reflex more than anything else and he shudders, head tipping back and exposing the long line of his throat, his sweetly-vulnerable pulse. 

God, she just wants to make him feel good. She wants to make him feel better than anyone else has _ever_. 

“I--” Jamie starts, and Darcy means to listen but her fingers come up to her mouth distractedly and he cuts himself off as she runs her tongue between them. Or maybe he does say more and she just doesn’t hear him, because his fucking taste--his slick and his saliva, his pheromones reeking so strong in both she can taste them all the way down the back of her throat--his fucking _taste_ is enough to make her growl deep in her chest. Jamie’s pupils dilate and she bares her teeth, and he brings the leg she’s not straddling up tight against her side. 

She could push down her panties and slide right in, she thinks again, and Jamie’s looking up at her like that’s exactly what he’s thinking too. 

“Is that what you want, honey?” she asks instead. “Me to taste you? Lick you out all sweet and warm?” Jamie makes a strangled sound, his eyes hot and huge in his face, and Darcy grabs his biological hand and kisses the back of his knuckles. 

“I . . . yeah, but--later?” he manages roughly, already breathing a little hard, his cock starting to swell against her hip and pheromones obviously building up for another heat spike. “Later, I . . . I want your knot first, alpha. Please.” 

“Anything you _want_ , omega,” Darcy swears on a hard shudder that makes them both bite their lips, that makes Jamie’s metal fingers tangle in the sheets and Darcy’s knees dig into the bed. He’s flushed and fucking gorgeous, and she’s so hard she might knot before she even gets the condom on. “Gimme a sec, let me grab the rubbers.” 

“Don’t need ‘em,” Jamie says, his face twisting, and Darcy stares at him in disbelief. He can’t actually mean--“I can’t whelp.” 

“Holy crap, this is what you smell like _not_ fertile?!” she chokes disbelievingly. Jamie flinches and she immediately hates herself for being an insensitive fucking ass. “I--shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--I’m sorry, baby, you can have me however you want. I’m so glad to give it to you either way. Shit.” 

“Well, I don’t want it _that_ way,” Jamie says with a weak smile, and Darcy laughs because he obviously wants her to but still kind of hates herself. She moves up and kisses him, shifting over to resettle between his legs, and he gives a cracked little purr into it, like he doesn’t quite know how to make the sound right. 

“You’re so good,” she tells him between kisses, one hand working her panties down. Jamie lifts the metal hand to help and it makes these gentle little whirring, clicking noises that make Darcy’s chest hurt. “ _So_ good, Jamie, tell me how you want it. Do you want to see my face, do you want me to push you down against the pillows? You want to bend over the bed?” 

Jamie furrows his brow like he’s actually _thinking_ about it as Darcy kicks off her panties, vaguely amazed that he can even manage that much concentration at this point. She’s sure as hell having trouble with it, and she’s only in the beginning of _sympathetic_ rut, nowhere near as bad as a full one, much less as bad as a full _heat_. 

Well, maybe getting him off twice already’s helped a bit with that, she admits. And she’s not going to lie, it’s really fucking hot to watch him think when he’s all rumpled and flushed and heated-up looking. 

“Like this,” he says after another long moment, shifting underneath her to drop his legs open even wider as his hands catch in the blankets down by his hips. Darcy takes a moment to reboot from the immediate blue screen of death, then kisses him again and grabs the closest pillow. 

“Hips up,” she says briskly; he drapes his biological arm over her shoulders as he lifts them and she almost forgets to tuck the pillow underneath him at the contact. Darcy’s seriously concerned about how fast she’s going to come if he keeps holding onto her like that when she’s fucking him, but has absolutely no desire to dissuade his grip. Jamie moans out loud when she puts her hands on his hips and she has to stop to reboot again. 

He’s really going to fucking _kill_ her, she thinks.

Darcy doesn’t waste time, though, just lines herself up and pushes in on one long, steady slide, trying not to lose her mind at the hot, unobstructed clutch of him. Jamie _purrs_ deep and throaty and not cracked at all this time, stretching his body underneath hers and arching up into her clit as it splits him open. Darcy growls in response, fingers instinctively digging into his hips, and he purrs even louder and rolls them up in an easy, lazy movement that nearly knocks the breath out of her. 

_“Fuck,”_ she snarls, own hips snapping forward reflexively, and Jamie’s breath hitches but he never stops purring, never stops moving up to meet her. “Fuck, Jamie, god, you really _are_ better every time, can’t even believe how good you’re being for me. Tell me what you need, omega, tell me what to give you.” 

“Your _knot_ , alpha,” Jamie sighs dreamily, his head dropping to the side to bare his neck as sweet as all Darcy’s best wet dreams and hands fisting against her back and in the sheets. “So full, please, I want as full as I can _get_.” 

“Anything you _want_ , baby,” Darcy swears, head dropping to breathe in the cinnamon-sugar sweetness at his pulse and ghostly notes of vanilla as she tightens her grip on his hips and braces her knees against the mattress. She rolls her hips testingly deeper and Jamie purrs even louder, heat pheromones thick and cloyingly perfect in the surrounding air. 

After that, the “testingly” part isn’t a concern anymore. She already knows Jamie deserves exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it, deserves even _more_ than what he wants, so she digs her fingers in and fucks him with steady, deliberate thrusts. He moves back into her, matches her pace perfectly and reacts instantly to every little change in it, keeping the biological arm flung across her back to pull her down even closer than she already is. 

Darcy’d keep talking him through it, probably, but getting her clit seems to have shaken something loose behind his teeth; Jamie’s suddenly noisy as _fuck_ , yelping and whining with every single thrust and letting out hot little curses every time she hits him just right. Her knot’s already half-blown but he’s so wet and receptive she can still fuck him to the root without a problem. The harder she goes the more he seems to want, so she lets go of his hip to brace her hands on either side of his shoulders and throws her weight into her next thrust. Jamie _yells_ , the sheets tearing under his metal hand and his biological nails digging in rough against her back as his eyes screw shut and his pheromones flare violently. 

Definitely a good reaction, Darcy thinks distantly, and keeps fucking him just like that until he’s half-shredded the sheets he’s gripping and she’s convinced her back is _definitely_ going to bruise a perfect shadow of his fingerprints. Jamie’s still yelping for it, though, panting and whimpering and spread out all sweet and greedy for her clit, so hell if she cares about her back or the damn _sheets_. She’ll hang those fucking sheets over the headboard in pride of place if it means Jamie’ll keep up the incoherent pleas and curses and keep unravelling into the gorgeous wreck currently writhing underneath her. 

She doesn’t want to stop fucking him. She doesn’t want to _ever_ stop, but he’s so hot and sweet and eager around her clit that she’s not sure how much longer she can keep going. 

_“Darcy!”_ he wails somewhere in the mess of sound, and Darcy snarls to hear it, eyes going wide and wild, and she doesn’t actually do anything different on purpose but she does _something_ , she knows, because suddenly Jamie’s outright _keening_ and tearing his nails down her back. 

It’s her knot, she realizes a moment later; her knot’s swelling up thick and fat and heavy even as she’s still fucking him with the full length of her clit, and he’s _still taking it_. 

“Oh _Jamie_ ,” she groans disbelievingly, staring down at his overwhelmed and desperate face; his gasping mouth and hunched shoulders and pretty flushed chest and tight nipples--all the parts she wants to touch all over again and a dozen times more and just never _stop_ touching. “So perfect, so sweet, wanna give you _everything_ , wanna make you so warm, make you feel so good, baby. You’re so good for me, take me just _right_. Tell me if it’s good, is this what you want?” 

“I want--Darcy, _Darcy_ , I want--” Jamie chokes, then shoves himself up with his metal arm, pulls her down with the biological one and curls up towards her, dropping his head forward and to the side as he looks up pleadingly from under his lashes. “Darcy, _please_.” 

And yeah, there is absolutely no way she’s denying him _that_. 

Darcy jerks forward, wraps around him and buries her mouth against the bared back of his neck to sink her teeth in. Jamie keens sharply, nails digging in between her shoulder blades, and she growls back roughly and grabs his cock. He fits in her hand just right, a perfect pretty curve against her palm, and it only takes a few hard strokes before he’s clutching up tight and coming around her so hard he nearly bucks her off. He screams with it and it’s fucking _beautiful_ , and Darcy fucks him through it and then thrusts in deep one last time as she comes too, her teeth in his neck and her knot fat and full inside him, his inner muscles clamped down painful and perfect around it as her come fills him up. 

She’s almost sure she really _does_ black out this time, because the next thing she knows they’re both collapsed flat in the tattered nest of her bed, her oversensitive knot locked secure inside him. Missionary isn’t the best position to knot in and they’ll both probably regret it later, but it’s worth it, Darcy thinks. She blinks heavily as she reorients and then stretches up to lick soothingly at the deep bite mark she left on Jamie’s neck, and he shifts to wrap both his arms around her with a soft little purr, one of his legs hooking across the back of hers. Darcy rumbles contentedly and skims a hand over his hair and down his cheek before tugging him down into a kiss. 

“You did so good,” she murmurs softly, letting her fingers twine through his hair. There’s still glitter in it, soft and pretty and sweet. “So good for me, omega, when they were so bad to you. Are you warm now?” 

“Yes,” Jamie murmurs back, his eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy. He looks soft and pretty and sweet even without the glitter, honestly, his cinnamon-sugar pheromones quelled by her knot and come filling him up. The knot’ll go down soon enough and his heat will start gearing up to spike again, but his body’s satisfied for the moment and her hindbrain is blissed out in turn, convinced it’s just bred and bonded a strong, gorgeous mate. Of course, Jamie’s infertile and the bond-bite won’t actually last unless he comes back for the next few heats, but sometimes it’s nice to have stupid biology. 

Well, more specifically, it _feels_ nice. 

“Good,” Darcy rumbles contentedly, drawing her fingers through his hair again. Jamie purrs quietly under the attention, winding his arms tighter around her and melting even heavier into the nest, and Darcy kisses him. He opens his mouth for her and she nips lightly at his lower lip and uses just enough tongue to make him purr again. “ _So_ good. You did great, sweetie, I can’t wait to do what else you want.” 

“Mmm.” Jamie squirms just enough to make stars go off behind Darcy’s eyes and she buries a breathless groan against his shoulder, digging her fingers into his hair and the bed. He really might kill her, she muses. Every other omega she’s ever made time with would be an incoherent, too-sensitive mess after three orgasms and finally getting a knot--they would definitely _not_ be squirming consideringly. 

Almost definitely going to kill her, she decides, then props herself up on her elbows and smiles down at him probably exactly as dopily as she’s trying not to. 

“You are the fucking _best_ ,” she informs him. “Also, just in case you were wondering, there’s still truffles.” 

“There are?” The hopeful look on Jamie’s face is fucking _adorable_ , and also hearteningly not sad-eyed at all. 

“For you, dude, there are _all_ the truffles,” Darcy promises him, reaching for the box.


	4. safety limit

For most omegas, heat lasts about three or four days--Ian’s was always two and clockwork-regular down to the exact hour, Steve’s are more erratic but average out around three, and Tony’s are just completely all over the place and can run the gamut from twelve-hour micro-heats to a good five days of penthouse-shaking headboard-banging, frequently spent complaining that menopause needs to hurry up and kick in already so he can get some actual _work_ done. Thor, being a weird thunder-god alien prince from time immemorial, usually hits a full six, and everyone is really, really sympathetic to Jane during and after. 

Jamie’s? Lasts _seven_. 

Darcy doesn’t actually realize this at the time, mind, since she’s too busy fucking him through the mattress--and against the wall, and into the floor, and in the shower, and one especially memorable time in the _closet_ \--although she keeps enough track of time to go out and collect the food and drinks Erik’s leaving in the hall for them on a semi-regular basis. Half the time Jamie’s a pliant and pleading and passive wreck; the other half he’s scrambling greedily on top of her and riding her clit so hard that . . . well, she never liked that headboard that much _anyway_. 

He also literally breaks the bed. That’s not even her, Darcy is totally blameless in this situation, she was just innocently eating him out when he punched out a bedpost and spilled them both all over the floor, blankets and pillows and mattress and the accidentally torn-down curtain all in a huge yelping mess. And if her rutbrain got a little too occupied with shoving him face-first over the side so they could fuck at a new and exciting angle, well, it wasn’t like they would’ve been able to save the bed at that point _anyway_. 

Like, even before Jamie grabbed onto the bed frame to brace himself and splintered it right in half. 

So yeah, that aside. 

So the heat goes smoothly, aside from some minor furniture casualties. Just the bed, the chair, the dresser, and maybe technically the towel rack, but nothing _major_. And, well, the bathroom counter might be a little cracked but--

_Anyway_. The heat goes smoothly. Jamie is mostly just skin and sinew and Darcy probably should not take it as a challenge but really, _really_ does; she feeds him truffles and fruit and smoothies and whenever she’s semi-coherent enough and has a hand free she writes elaborate, lovingly-crafted menus and grocery lists and slides them under the door. Some of them are a little more lust-addled and lofty than she would normally go for, but they’re also in Tony Stark’s building so they still all end up on the other side of the door and she hand-feeds Jamie every bite. 

Jane is a saint, honestly, because sometime around day four Darcy is so loopy with pheromones that her shopping list is literally just the words _CHOCOLATE SAUCE_ underlined four times and Erik drops off six different kinds, a fruit platter the size of her face, two gallons of ice cream, _and_ a fondue pot. 

Also, whipped cream apparently comes in _flavors_ , which is frankly amazing new knowledge, Darcy has no idea how she did not know this was a thing before. Jamie didn’t either, and between them they go through all four cans inside the afternoon. Both of them end up sticky fucking messes but Jamie also _laughs_ , so fuck if Darcy cares that she has to wash cinnamon-praline whipped cream out of her pubes afterwards. 

The glitter doesn’t come out of the sheets the whole damn heat, either. 

The morning of day eight, Darcy wakes up to the sound of Jamie hyperventilating on the mattress next to her. 

She opens her eyes and looks over at him, and he’s looking back at her with a terrified expression, clutching his chest with the metal hand and digging his fingers in hard. She can see the faded imprint of the latest bond-bite she gave him on his neck and no other markings on his skin at all, aside from the scars. He is beautiful, and also completely fucking terrifying. 

“Hey,” she says quietly. “You alright?” 

“Don’t make me go back,” Jamie pleads immediately, eyes wide and pained and barely tracking her. “I know--I know it’s a trap, I _know_ , I just, I can’t, I can’t go back to it, I can't, just _kill me_ \--” 

The heat went smoothly, Darcy thinks. 

This--this is not the heat. 

“Jamie,” she says carefully. “You’re in Avengers Tower. You came with me. Nobody’s trying to take you anywhere you don’t wanna go.” His face screws up even more miserably than it did back in the alley, red and wounded-looking, and she wishes he’d cry because maybe that would look less painful than that expression does. 

“I don’t want to hurt people anymore,” he says despairingly. “Don’t make me.” 

“I won’t,” Darcy says, because she has absolutely no clue what _else_ to say. Jamie’s expression crumples. He’s naked and gorgeous and fucking _heartbreaking_ to look at, his scent reeking of distress and grief even past the last traces of heat pheromones, and she wants to take the weight off him like she has maybe never wanted anything else in her life. 

She has no idea how to. This--whatever it is--isn’t something she can solve with a bath bomb and a smoothie and her knot, isn’t some small and sweet immediate need. This is why he’s afraid of cameras and hiding in skinny dead-end alleys smelling like antiseptic wipes and public bathroom soap, why those guys stared at him like he was a threat and why he balked when he saw the tower. 

Why he’s got that arm and those scars, probably, and _definitely_ why it’d taken so long for him to relax for her even all heated up. 

“Jamie,” she says, reaching out to grip his biological hand--she has no idea how the metal one processes things, if her grip on it would feel reassuring to him at all. “I swear, I won’t make you hurt _anybody_. But you should definitely hurt anyone who _tries_ to.” 

“Nnn.” Jamie squeezes his eyes shut, fingers digging in harder against his chest. Darcy really, really hopes there’s a safety limit on the grip strength in that arm. 

She’s pretty sure there’s not. 

“Jamie,” she repeats earnestly, squeezing his hand tight in her own and putting as much “alpha” in her voice as she can without feeling like one of those fuckers back in the alley. “You’re so good, baby, I know you try so hard. I can _tell_ you try so hard. You’re not--” 

“Stop,” he gets out through gritted teeth, looking even tenser and more pained. “Just--I’m not, I can’t, just _stop_.” Darcy falls silent; she thinks about taking back her hand, letting him go, but he’s gripping back like he wants her to stay so she doesn’t. 

She kisses his cheek, because if he won’t listen to her words she doesn’t know what else to do, and a pained shiver goes through him.

But his fingers tighten in hers. 

Darcy kisses the corner of his mouth this time and he lets out a little whine. He’s not really _in heat_ anymore, she can tell, but there’s just enough leftover pheromones still in his system that he’s probably more sensitive than he’s used to being. She puts a hand on his chest, sneaks it under the painful-looking grip of his metal fingers, and he whines again. 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” she says, because he’s already told her he doesn’t want to hear anything about being good. There’s other things she can say, though. “C’mon, omega, just relax. You’re fine. Nobody’s taking you anywhere. Nobody’s making you do anything. Hell, you don’t even have to relax if you don’t wanna.” 

“I don’t,” Jamie says, his breath coming too quick. “I don’t--want to.” 

“What do you want?” Darcy asks. 

“Not to . . . not to hurt people,” Jamie manages to get out, eyes squeezing shut. “Not to go back. To be--to be--” His teeth lock together; his fingers grip Darcy’s hard enough for it to hurt, but not hard enough to make her want to let go. 

“To be what, omega?” Darcy asks, tone as careful as she can make it. 

_“Good,”_ Jamie says painfully, wet eyes snapping open to stare at her. 

“You were good for me,” Darcy tells him, squeezing his hand again. It’s not what he wants to hear, maybe, but he’s also the one who brought it up again, so . . . “You were _great_ for me, baby.” 

“No, not--” Jamie’s face crumbles, and he shakes his head. “A good _person_.” 

“What’s that mean?” Darcy asks, her eyes tracking his expression as she pushes her free hand up his chest. He picked her for this--to take care of him. She’s going to do it. Jamie just shakes his head, though, curling towards her. “It’s okay, c’mon. Tell me what that means. Not hurting people, right? What else?” 

“I don’t _know_ ,” Jamie chokes, audibly pained. Darcy grabs his shoulder and tugs at him without thinking in response to that miserable look, and he goes with it before she can think to regret the impulse, pushing in tight against her side and curling in on himself even smaller, his face tucked away against her neck. “I want . . . like my friend. My friend’s good. I want to be like that. But he has . . . he’s got other friends now. And they’re _already_ . . . they’re already good. Not like me.” 

“Who cares?” Darcy asks, squeezing his shoulder--the biological one. The metal one, again, she really doesn’t know what he can feel through. It’s too responsive for him to have no feedback in at all, but she still hasn’t been able to figure out if there’s anything _else_. He kept it away from her enough that she’s not even sure if he’s ashamed of it or concerned it’ll break her back if he tries to wrap it around her. 

“Me,” Jamie says roughly, tensing up against her. “I care.” 

. . . well. Can’t argue with that, really. 

“Okay,” Darcy says, stroking a hand through his hair. “What about your friend?” 

“. . . uh?” Jamie pulls back just enough to blink wetly at her, confused. 

“Your friend,” Darcy says, because while she doesn’t know for _sure_ . . . well. The way Jamie seems to think about himself, it’s a question worth asking. “Does he care?” 

“Yes,” Jamie says quickly, tensing again. “My friend’s good.” 

“No,” Darcy says, shaking her head but careful to keep her eyes on him. “Does your friend care if _you’re_ good?” 

“He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t like bullies,” Jamie says, his eyes going distant like he’s someplace very definitely not here. “He doesn’t like bad people.” 

“Okay,” Darcy says still more carefully, giving his hand another little squeeze. “But you’re _not_ bad, Jamie. You wouldn’t want to be good if you were bad, right?” 

“Lots of bad people say they’re good,” Jamie says, eyes refocusing into dull, glazed things. Darcy’s heart sinks a little at the sight. 

“But you told me you weren’t,” she says, determined to convince him anyway. It can’t be any harder than keeping Jane going in London was, she thinks, even though yes, of course it can. It could be so much harder. “You don’t _think_ you’re good, you’re trying to _be_ good. Isn’t that different?” 

“No. Yes.” He hides his face against her neck again; for the first time, it occurs to her to wonder if it’s the reassurance of her alpha pheromones he’s looking for when he does that. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her before. “I don’t know.” 

Her pheromones are helping him, she hopes. _His_ pheromones . . . 

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to,” Darcy husks, wrapping her free arm around him tight, using the other to bring their locked hands in close between their chests, cradled there protectively. Jamie smells like he did in the alley, sad and hurting and _lost_ , and her alpha instincts want . . . a lot of things, really, but mostly for him not to smell like that anymore. “It’s fine if you don’t know. But think about it for me, okay? And for your friend.” 

“Mm.” Jamie tucks his face in even tighter, the biological hand gripping hers tight, and Darcy wishes there was more she could do, and not just because the scent of an omega in distress makes her hindbrain kick up. 

The protective instincts are good, usually. Admittedly sometimes they get her into shit down a blind alley with three armed assholes and a hurting omega and sometimes they fuck up her day or her life--tasing Thor in New Mexico had made her want to _puke_ , and if Erik hadn’t been there she’s not sure she could’ve done it at all, and then of course SHIELD had sent in a bunch of omega agents to steal all their shit so she and Jane couldn’t even protest properly--but in general, she can’t really complain about feeling a compulsion to help an omega (or occasional beta) in distress. 

The problem with those instincts, of course, is that they’re _instincts_ , and the solutions they offer are generally “hit that other alpha with a brick”, “tase the problem until it goes away”, or “this omega is sad, they need _babies_ ”. 

Even if she could actually give Jamie that, of course, it would not actually be a solution to his problems. Pretty much the opposite of one, in fact. The best she can really do is pet down his back with her free hand, keep a grip on his with the other one, and croon nonsense platitudes into his hair while he breathes too harsh against her throat and stays in close. Her heart’s aching; meanwhile her fucking useless _clit_ wants to slot in between his thighs and feed him her knot as sweet and easy as she fed him all those truffles, keep him right here and fatten him up on sweet little treats and good healthy food and good healthy _babies_ \--

Ergh. Darcy can control her hindbrain, really. Really. Almost definitely. 

At least a _little_. 

“You’re hard,” Jamie mumbles against her throat, and Darcy hates _everything_. 

“It’s not--” she starts guiltily, but doesn’t get very far. 

“Put it in me,” Jamie interrupts in a murmur, crooking his knee just enough to make space for her and tilting his hips to make himself accessible. Darcy tries not to choke. 

“Baby, are you sure?” she manages, skimming her free hand down his side, and he tightens his grip on the other one and nods mutely against her shoulder. This isn’t heat talking, Darcy can tell--can _smell_ \--and she’s not sure if it’s really the smartest idea when Jamie’s so obviously feeling unstable. 

But she’s also the alpha who told herself she was going to give this omega whatever he wanted as soon as he wanted it. 

“Okay. Anything you want,” Darcy promises as she presses her mouth into his hair, dropping her hand down to hook behind his knee and tug his leg across her hip. Jamie digs his heel into the back of her thigh and she runs her fingers back to his hole to make sure he’s slick and receptive--he doesn’t smell quite right with that lonely scent overlaying his pheromones, she needs to be sure. 

He’s not as wet as he’s been, but he’s definitely wet, and he whines softly at the touch. He moves down against her fingers and tightens his grip on her hand again, and that reassures her well enough to take herself in hand and push into him. He nuzzles into her shoulder with a low moan as she slides in, and she grips his hip to keep them close to each other. 

“Darcy,” he says, voice hitching. 

“Jamie,” she murmurs softly, rocking into him in slow thrusts. “You okay? Is this what you wanted?” 

“Yeah,” he mutters back, hopefully breathing heavily from how it feels and not the hints of distress she can still smell on him. 

“Good,” Darcy says as soothingly as she can, petting his hip reassuringly and pushing her mouth into his hair. She hopes it’s soothing. She _hopes_ it’s reassuring. Sam would’ve probably been better for this. Or Pepper, Pepper would’ve been _such_ a good alpha to Jamie, he’d have loved how hot she runs. “Thank you for telling me, baby, that was really brave. I know it’s hard for you, but you’re doing so good with it.” 

“You make it feel good,” Jamie says tightly, not lifting his head. 

“I like that you let me do that,” Darcy tells him quietly, rolling her hips in a little harder. Jamie makes another hitched noise against her shoulder, his heel digging in higher up her thigh, and she chases the exact angle that made him react like that until he’s outright whimpering on every thrust. She’s almost positive her ass is going to bruise from how hard he’s digging his heel into it now--which she’s saying from experience, mind, because there’s at least another four to match it from the past few days. 

The thought makes her growl and dig her nails in, thinking of Jamie’s nearly unmarked skin. The _only_ marks that stuck were the bond-bites, and even they’re a lot more faded than normal. It makes her feel like she’s not doing enough. She’s doing everything she can, she _knows_ she is, but Jamie is sad and alone and needs to remember that he isn’t, that he doesn’t _have_ to be, that people will take care of him if he just--if _they_ just--if--

God, she doesn’t even _know_. 

“Alpha,” Jamie whimpers, and Darcy bites down over the latest bond-bite. He yelps, head dropping to the side to expose more of his throat, and Darcy growls again against his skin and gnaws at the bite, her nails digging into his hip. Marks are the only thing she can give him, but she could mark him up like nothing else and it still wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t last for proof or evidence or--or _anything_ , anything at all. He’s hurt and he’s lonely and she can’t do anything for him but this, and this isn’t going to last. 

It makes her hindbrain fucking _crazy_. 

She wants to keep him in her closet with the nesting pillows or in her tub with an endless supply of bath bombs and truffles. She wants to fuck him straight through this mattress. She wants to feed him up and help him make a den resilient enough to survive his arm out of her bedroom and let him curl up safe in her bed and stay where he will never, ever have to face another camera or hurt anyone again, even if they deserve it. Jamie doesn’t deserve having to _do_ it, either way. 

Really, though, what Jamie deserves is a lot more than anyone’s given him, and definitely a much, much better alpha than any other one he’s had so far. 

“You deserve so much better than this,” she mutters roughly, not actually meaning to say it, and he makes a pained sound, shoulders hunching. 

“Don’t stop,” he rasps when she reflexively pauses, then wraps his metal hand around her shoulder and pulls her on top of him. Darcy goes with it easily, shuddering as Jamie digs his knees into her sides and squirms into a more comfortable position underneath her. 

“Not too much?” she murmurs as soon as he’s settled, already rolling her hips into him again--he asked for it, of course she’s giving it to him. Jamie shakes his head restlessly, metal hand back in the blankets and biological one letting go of her hand to wrap around the back of her shoulders. Darcy braces herself with both hands for the leverage and kisses the bond-bite, and he stares up at her with heavy, hazy eyes. “You want my knot, omega?” she asks breathlessly, just to be sure. 

“Yes, alpha,” he replies, voice quiet and knees squeezing her sides again. Darcy gives it to him--of course she does--and he noises unhappily until she realizes what’s wrong and puts her teeth back in his neck. She’d wonder more about what he wanted out of this if she could string a few more coherent thoughts together. 

Jamie comes without much more than that--she doesn’t even have to touch his cock, her teeth in his neck and a few more well-placed thrusts are all it takes. He makes a hoarse, breathy sound and his come spills all over his stomach, and part of her wants to laugh because the fact either of them has any come _left_ at this point is frankly just . . . fucking _amazing_ , really. 

After that she grinds more than thrusts and he noises breathlessly up at her, fingers dragging against her back and the mattress. She comes slow and shaky inside of him and it feels so fucking good but still not _enough_ , not enough for _him_ , and Jamie clutches up tight and sweet around her and pushes his neck up into her teeth. 

How many days of this and they _still_ haven’t learned better than to knot in missionary, Darcy thinks wryly in the afterglow, giving serious consideration to never moving again. 

They stay like that for a while--just about exactly as long as it takes Darcy’s knot to go down, in fact--and then Jamie nudges at her shoulder and Darcy rolls off him gingerly. She kisses his cheek and his eyes half-shutter, and then he gets off the bed and heads into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The shower starts up immediately, and she sighs and drops her head back against the mattress to stare up at the ceiling. 

Well. That wasn’t heat sex. 

Darcy considers getting dressed and also maybe thinking certain life choices she’s made this week through a little more, then decides that’s a terrible idea and just lays there and listens to the shower run. She’s been in it with Jamie a few times now--neither of them was really patient enough to draw a proper bath again, except for when they were too exhausted to get off the floor/bed/chair/wherever to actually make it there--but every time she was the one scrubbing him down, so she has no idea what he's like doing it for himself. 

Probably not as kind as he should be, she can’t help but suspect. 

Five minutes later the water shuts off and Jamie comes back out clean-shaven again and wearing the clothes he showed up in, which Darcy vaguely remembers washing sometime around day three and which the sight of makes her wince. She can’t imagine them being any more comfortable for an omega fresh off heat than they would’ve been for one going into it, and Jamie already appears to be at the normal baseline level of misery he seems to operate on outside heat. 

That isn’t really comforting, for obvious reasons. 

“You need to wash the sheets and take a shower,” Jamie says shortly, standing stiff and straight with his mismatched hands hidden in his pockets. “And do--something about the mattress. You can’t go out smelling like me. You can’t go _anywhere_ smelling like me.” 

“Okay,” Darcy says, just looking at him. He doesn’t look any less miserable than he did the first day. He doesn’t even feel safe enough to go out with her scent on him; she can’t even give him _that_. “You want something to eat before you go?” she asks, for lack of any better ideas. 

“No,” Jamie replies uncomfortably, shoulders tensing. “I need to--leave. I’ve been here too long.” 

“Yeah,” Darcy says uselessly, still just looking at him. He looks back helplessly and is still the six foot tall human wrecking ball she watched tear apart three huge alphas like they weren’t shit, still the uncertain omega who didn’t even know if he liked freaking _bubble_ bath when she asked. Still the guy who’s going to be alone the minute he walks out the front door. 

And who’s still going to walk out the front door. 

“Here, just--c’mere for a second,” Darcy says finally, rolling to her feet and reaching for his baseball cap. Jamie lets her take it off him and she sets it on the miraculously intact and upright nightstand, then ducks into her closet and comes back with her softest beanie and scarf, then pauses and goes back for the matching gloves, because _duh_ , of course the gloves. They might not do so great with the plates on his metal hand, to be honest, but at least they’re stretchy as hell. 

“What--” Jamie starts, frowning, and Darcy tugs the beanie over his head. It’s comfy and warm and _got_ to be an improvement on that cheap-ass baseball cap with the plastic band in the back, she figures. It’s cold out, anyway--it’s no wonder he’s wearing all those layers, just . . . fuck, it can’t actually be _comfortable_. 

“Gloves,” she says firmly, putting them in his hands and then throwing the scarf over his shoulder. “Not sending you off to freeze to death in New York winter, that’s a shit idea right there.” 

“I wouldn’t die,” Jamie says like he very definitely _knows_. Darcy grits her teeth and turns back to the closet. She grabs her backpack out of the back--she hasn’t used the thing since Culver, anyway--and then yanks the drawers out from underneath her semi-intact bed frame. It’s a little harder to do than it should be, but it works, so whatever. She dumps every heat snack they didn’t get through into the bag along with the two neglected cans of juice she finds in the back corner, then heads into the bathroom and gets soap and toothpaste, a double-pack of toothbrushes and a pack of razors, and the emergency first aid kit from under the sink, and packs all that too. She doesn’t know if the meds in the kit will be any use but there’s at least a flashlight and bandages and a casualty blanket, and if they don’t work on him he can always swap them for something. 

She _doesn’t_ think about what he’s so worried about. She doesn’t. There’s no way her instincts will let him out the door if she does, and she is _not_ that kind of knotbrained asshole. Jamie knows what kind of shit he’s in and he’s a fucking adult; he gets to decide what he does about it. 

Besides, what the hell would keeping him in her closet actually _do_ for him anyway? 

She stops, hovering uncertainly over the bag and not sure if she has anything else useful to add--there’s her taser, but that’s assuming Jamie’d have anywhere to charge it and, more importantly, that it wouldn’t have a _really_ bad reaction with the metal arm if something went wrong. Some damn snack food and toothpaste and band-aids doesn’t feel like _enough_ , though, it’s not--it isn’t---

“Darcy,” Jamie murmurs, catching her wrist with a gloved hand, and she’s the one giving him the miserable look this time. 

“You don’t have to go,” she says. 

“I really do,” he says. 

“If you need--anything, really, literally _anything_ , a heat partner or money or a freaking _alibi_ \--” she starts, and then he looks miserable too and she shakes her head uselessly, hands fisting. It’s not enough. There _is_ no enough. “I just . . . I’m not moving anytime soon, okay? I’ll be here.” 

“Wash the sheets,” Jamie says. “Take a shower.” 

Darcy’s shoulders slump. She picks up the bag and hands it to him. He takes it, which is probably the most trusting thing she’s seen him do so far, up to and including turning his back on her in bed and coming with her to begin with. 

“Kick their asses, omega,” she says finally, forcing herself to sound flippant as she pushes up on her toes to kiss his cheek. If she sounds flippant then--then she doesn’t know. It’ll help, won’t it? 

“Yes, alpha,” he replies quietly, head ducking just enough to show the faded bond-bite on his neck. She kisses that, too. 

Then he leaves and she goes to take a shower. 

Best place to cry anyway, right?


	5. american dream

Darcy spends an embarrassing amount of time in the shower trying not to sniffle too loudly, then recovers just enough to see that Jamie took the heat basket soaps and shampoos in and belatedly realizes that he smelled like vanilla when he left. Then she sits down on the bench and outright _sobs_ for a good five minutes. 

Then she washes her hair and scrubs his scent off her and does _not_ cry any more than that, and then she puts her hair up in a towel and puts on a robe and drags literally everything washable out of her room to the washing machine in the back of the floor. Technically there’s a laundry chute, but they’ve also got their own machines and Darcy’s fairly sure if she’d asked Jamie would’ve said to wash it all herself. 

She never really got the whole story out of him about just who he’s avoiding--there’s enough chaos going on right now, it could be anybody from AIM to HYDRA to the government to some completely new disaster. Hell, he might even be avoiding the _Avengers_ , for all she knows. 

Whatever had him so convinced he couldn’t stop running, though . . . yeah. She can’t blame him for it, not when he was so scared, not after all the shit he’s so clearly gone through; especially not when those assholes in the alley were trying to coax him away like they thought they were talking down something rabid instead of a _person_. Darcy has no idea what Jamie Thacket did or is going to do, but she’d shove anyone trying to lay a hand on him off a roof without guilt. 

That might be the alpha instincts interfering with her judgement again, unfortunately, but either way she’s sticking to the sentiment all the same. 

She leaves the laundry in the machine and heads back to her room to get dressed and put on her glasses so she can start cleaning up, and more importantly start writing an itemized list of shit they trashed. Well-- _Jamie_ trashed, technically, but it’s not like she’s blameless. 

God, she’s pretty sure that counter was marble, too. She _really_ hopes Tony didn’t spring for something ridiculously expensive. 

. . . more ridiculously expensive than normal, she means. 

Then the exhaustion catches up and she ends up passing out dead asleep no more than ten minutes into the effort. 

The mattress still smells like Jamie. 

Darcy sleeps for twelve hours, give or take, then wakes up starving and miserable and unhappily sprays the mattress with a shit-ton of Febreeze, showers again, and switches her damp, neglected laundry into the dryer. She also considers never doing anything again in her entire life and maybe crying some more too. Instead she eats absolutely everything in the fridge and goes back to actually finish cleaning her room this time, checking carefully for anything that might’ve kept a trace of Jamie’s scent and Febreezing the hell out of all that, too. 

He left his hat on the nightstand. 

Normally she wouldn’t do this. Normally she’d _bask_ in the leftover scent of heat, roll around in it for _days_ and allow it to dissipate naturally, like pretty much any other alpha would. But Jamie asked her to do it, so she does, even though it makes her instincts panicky like she lost him, like something _happened_ to him, like--

She breathes in. She breathes out. She Febreezes the damn hat. Then she goes back to bed. 

In the morning, Darcy gets properly dressed for the first time in nine days, finds out it’s _been_ nine days, and then puts on Jamie’s baseball cap and tucks her hair through the back of it. It’s pretty much exactly as uncomfortable as she suspected it would be. She goes down to the common floor to eat, because she’s seen literally no one since Jane and Thor on day one of Jamie’s heat. They’re not there--Thor’s probably in heat now himself, come to think--but Clint’s sitting on the breakfast table with coffee and a bowl of cereal and he greets her with a little wave. She hasn’t been so glad for the calming balm of beta pheromones in _years_. 

“Hey,” he says. “Thor said you had an emergency heat partner?” 

“Yeah,” Darcy sighs, claiming literally the entire box of Eggo waffles and bringing it, the butter and syrup, the entire gallon of orange juice, and the toaster to the table. She sits close so she can breathe him in and stabilize a little more, because hell if she’s looking this gift horse in the mouth. 

“Guess that went well,” Clint says, raising his eyebrows as she sets up her pile. “When’d they leave?” 

“Yesterday morning,” Darcy replies moodily, plugging in the toaster and dropping Eggos into all four slots. 

“Damn.” Clint looks impressed. “Isn’t that like, five days?” 

_“Seven,”_ Darcy says, shaking her head disbelievingly. She doesn’t know how she actually survived it. Normally an omega would take the better part of a day both pre and post heat for nesting and recovery, too, so she doesn’t blame Clint for the misassumption. “He was already going into heat when he got here and he left, like, _immediately_ after he was out of it.” 

“He did? Why?” Clint asks, baffled. Again, Darcy does not blame him. 

“Because all his previous heat partners were _scumlords_ , basically,” she mutters darkly, glowering at the toaster. It’s not toasting fast enough. She might just start eating the frozen ones. “God, I felt so bad for him. And I wanted to find all of _them_ and kick their fucking _teeth_ in.” 

“Yeah. Don’t suppose he named names?” Clint inquires, tapping his spoon against the side of his bowl with a mild expression. 

“I _wish_ ,” Darcy groans, slumping forward against the table. “I’d give them all to you and Natasha and just let nature take its course from there. And then I’d take him home and feed him _everything_.” 

“The guy's that good in bed, huh?” Clint asks wryly, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“That _good_ ,” Darcy says feelingly, fingers curling against the table. Clint gives her a thoughtful look, but before he can say anything else the toaster pops, and then Sam and Natasha shuffle exhaustedly into the kitchen, both making a beeline for the cupboards. Darcy is genuinely impressed by the amount of food they manage to gather between them, but also partially distracted by burning her mouth on the hot waffle she’s currently trying to swallow whole without so much as stopping to butter, because _priorities_ , okay. 

_“Jesus,”_ Sam groans, collapsing at the kitchen table and nearly spilling everything in his arms. Natasha manages to sit down like a mostly normal person, but is staring off into the distance with a blank expression. Like, not her usual _“it’s a trap!”_ blank, just, like . . . blank-blank. Darcy blinks at them stupidly past the orange juice, mouth still full and honestly probably still half-asleep. 

“Nyaf?” she manages around the waffle, even almost coherently. 

“I just spent eight days rutting the American Dream,” Sam announces, slightly wild-eyed. 

“Holy shit,” Darcy chokes, her own eyes widening as Clint whistles disbelievingly. As hard as it was keeping up with Jamie at least he’s not a _super_ -soldier. “Since when does Steve’s heat run that long?” 

“Since _never_ , literally never, this has apparently not happened since World War _freaking_ II,” Sam groans, then fixes Natasha with an accusing look. “You know what the longest heat he had with just me was? Four days! _Four_!” 

“Don’t look at me, Wilson,” Natasha retorts dubiously, tearing open a box of granola bars. “He never went over two before _you_ showed up.” 

“Are you guys . . . uh, bonding?” Darcy asks warily as she glances between them, not quite sure which way the wind is blowing here. Natasha barks out a loud, abrupt laugh, then looks very suddenly alarmed. 

“No,” she says, looking at Sam. He looks back, and awkward silence falls. Darcy wonders if she should regret asking. 

“Cut the guy a break, he’s been on the road for his last three heats,” Clint sighs, taking a sip of his coffee. “Of course he’s gonna have a long one the first time he gets to den down how he likes again, even without knowing he’d have two heat partners. Poor bastard probably hasn’t actually _had_ a decent knot since the forties.” 

Darcy imagines that briefly. Imagines all too well, in fact, which is pretty charmingly optimistic of her hindbrain but not going to do shit. She’s pretty sure her clit will legit break if she gets horny again anytime in the next week. Or _month_. 

Peggy Carter was hot as hell back in the day, though, and although the super-pretty Howard Stark had been an omega, Darcy _knows_ at least two or three of the Howling Commandos were alphas too, and it’s been a while since World History 101 but she distinctly remembers that none of them were exactly slouches in the looks department either. They’d have been the most logical heat partners under the circumstances, even if Steve _hadn’t_ already been trusting them with his life in the field; she’s got no doubt they were shacking up on the regular. 

Unless Bucky Barnes was an alpha? Darcy’s not actually sure, she was never super into WWII stuff in school and even when she was a kid she ignored the old Howling Commandos cartoons--they were on against Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, okay, damn _right_ she ignored them. She remembers assuming he was a beta at some point, she thinks, because if he’d been an alpha why wouldn’t he and Steve Rogers have been bonded--she _heard_ the weapons facility rescue story, okay, they would’ve definitely been bonded--but she'd picked Jim Morita for her actual written report because hello, the Japanese-American Howling Commando whose every family member back in the States was all in internment camps, of _course_ she'd picked Jim Morita. 

Morita was an alpha. Morita probably knotted Steve. Morita probably knotted Steve through _multiple heats_ , along with . . . well, whoever wasn’t Barnes, she guesses. She vaguely recalls there was a pretty even split in the unit--another notch in its belt in the history books--so there would’ve been . . . what, there’d been six Howling Commandos, right? So two omegas, two betas, and two alphas, and then Steve. Maybe? Yeah, that could make for some pretty decent heats. 

Darcy glazes over a little trying to work out the logistics, somewhat impressed with the recovery time of her own libido, considering. 

“Good morning,” Steve greets from the doorway. Darcy starts guiltily, then stares. Everyone stares. He’s fucking _glowing_. 

“Daaaaamn, you guys,” Darcy says, impressed despite herself (upset despite herself; Jamie didn’t leave yesterday looking _anything_ like that). Natasha gets this cat-who-fucked-the-cream look in her eyes and smirks at Steve, and Sam gives him a crooked, satisfied grin. Steve turns pink and grins back at them, and it occurs to Darcy she’s never actually _seen_ him grin before. 

Come to think, she’s not sure she’s ever seen him smile at all outside of war bond posters. Admittedly they haven’t spent _that_ much time together, but . . . 

“C’mere,” Sam says, pushing his chair back, and Steve laughs at him but does, letting Sam pull him down into his lap and Natasha scoot her chair close enough to pull his legs across her lap. They both kiss him and there’s this disgustingly adorable moment where Sam tries to feed him an orange slice at the same time Natasha’s trying to feed him a granola bar and they get ridiculously in each other’s way, and Steve laughs again and scoops an apple off the table instead. “Oh, it’s like _that_.” 

“Mmm, it’s like that,” Steve agrees around a bite of apple, still grinning. His hair’s a mess and he’s got bonding bites layered on both sides of his neck, dark and loving bruises stacked up all pretty like kaleidescope patterns, and Darcy can’t tell which are Sam’s and which are Natasha’s. “Not too heavy for you, am I?” 

“Yeah, yeah, you _enjoy_ that breakfast,” Sam snorts, poking his cheek with the orange slice, which Natasha parries with her granola bar. Steve laughs again and it’s actually kind of amazing, Darcy has to admit; she didn’t even know he _could_ laugh. Well--obviously he could, she didn’t think he was physically incapable or anything. She just didn’t know he _would_. 

God, even Captain _America_ is all smiley and lovey post-heat. Poor fucking Jamie, she thinks, breathing Clint’s pheromones in a little deeper. 

“You could’ve waited in bed, we’d have brought you food,” Natasha tells Steve as she breaks up the granola bar to feed to Sam instead, who seems pleasantly surprised and returns the favor with the orange segments. 

“You did that yesterday,” Steve says, giving her an amused look. 

“You say this like that would somehow decrease our desire to do it _today_ ,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“Actually I thought the part where neither of you noticed me get up for a run and come back an hour later was doing that,” Steve replies mildly, taking a very smug bite of apple. 

“. . . I noticed,” Natasha says, surprisingly unconvincingly for Natasha, then fixes Steve with a suspicious look. “I _would_ have noticed.” He smiles back all blithe sweetness and takes another bite while Sam and Clint muffle snickers. It’s freaking adorable, but also makes Darcy’s chest ache a little--someone should be doing this for Jamie, too, cuddling and coddling him back to status quo, and she knows no one is. 

“So how was everyone else’s week?” Steve asks gamely. Natasha’s still giving him the eye. 

“Thor’s nested up with Jane, Tony blew up his new suit, Rhodey and Pepper locked him out of the lab, and Bruce locked himself in _his_ lab with Selvig,” Clint replies, taking a sip of his coffee. “And I fought the mafia. Well. A mafia.” 

“I had an emergency heat partner,” Darcy puts in, dropping another set of waffles in the toaster. Very tellingly of their lives, the other three only perk up curiously at _that_. 

“Tony’s luck with Pepper being in the country finally run out?” Natasha asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“Naw, just met a super-yummy stranger who needed the hand,” Darcy replies, shaking her head. She’s pretty sure if she tried to rut Tony it would fast devolve into a sass-off anyway, he’d probably be better off with an AI and a knotting vibe. She’s not sure he _hasn’t_ spent a few heats like that, actually. “And, y’know, we were already on heat protocol anyway, not like it took much extra out of J.A.R.V.I.S. or anything.” 

“I think it took it out of _you_ ,” Clint says wryly. Darcy gives him a sheepish grin. 

“I regret nothing,” she says. Nothing about the heat, anyway. Nothing she could actually have _done_ anything about. 

“Good, ‘cause that’s seven days of your life you’re not getting back anytime soon,” Clint replied, amused. 

“Damn, woman,” Sam says, impressed. Natasha high-fives her, possibly not even ironically. “Welcome to the club, Lewis. Since week-long heats are apparently a _thing_ now. Thinking of starting a support group, actually, maybe something involving crutches.” 

“I didn’t know!” Steve says, blushing bright red. “I haven’t had a heat that long since . . . well . . .” 

“1945?” Clint guesses. Steve winces, but nods. 

“Yeah, uh . . . my cycle was pretty erratic before the serum but during the war I had real long heats,” he murmurs, not looking quite so glowy anymore. “Bucky used to whine at me for days after, complaining how he was going to throw his back out one of these days.” 

“I thought Bucky Barnes was a beta,” Darcy says, frowning. Seriously, why would they _not_ have bonded if he were an alpha? 

“Omega,” Steve says, shaking his head. “There was more than one reason I worked pretty exclusively with the Commandos--when Bucky synced up with me after we got back to base his heats lasted twice as long as they used to. But Dernier only ever had micro-heats and the rest of the Commandos were all alphas and betas, so at least then it was just Buck and I useless seven days out of ninety, as opposed to half the _camp_. Used to drive Phillips nuts planning ops around our cycle, though.” 

“You think you went longer because you guys got close enough to sync up again?” Clint asks carefully, taking another sip of coffee. 

“No.” Steve looks upset. “We never got anywhere near him. Couldn’t have missed him--he smells different, now. This awful chemical and copper mix, like . . .” 

“Bleach and blood,” Sam supplies, and Steve grimaces, nodding again. 

“Spent the better part of nine months chasing our tails and never caught a hint of it,” he says resignedly. “Who knows where he actually was, probably halfway across the world doing terrible things to terrible people.” 

“Not actually the worst option, mind,” Sam points out. 

“Arguably an improvement, in fact,” Natasha puts in neutrally. She’s petting Steve’s calves in tiny little strokes; Sam’s nuzzling into his neck. Darcy wonders if either of them’s actually noticed what they’re doing; bonds hit like that, sometimes, even if they’re not planning to keep it up. Awkward silences aside, Steve didn’t have a bond-bite when he and Sam first slouched in from the road, so she can only assume they’re not. 

Unless they were waiting for Natasha, maybe, or . . . who knows, actually. And she really doesn’t want to ask again. 

“What did he smell like before?” she asks instead, which, in retrospect, may actually be a _worse_ question. Steve’s face goes soft, though, and he smiles again. It’s sad this time, unfortunately. 

“Like iced cinnamon cake,” he says. “The others complained every time we went into pre-heat, said putting up with rations was hard enough without the two of us smelling like a damn bakery.” 

“Gotta tell you, I would take the bakery over the damn metal arm,” Sam says, shaking his head. “My poor wings, man.” 

“Cinnamon cake, huh,” Darcy repeats as Clint and Natasha snicker under their breaths, something twanging oddly in the back of her head. That’s a weird coincidence, a guy with a metal arm who smells like a cinnamon-based baked good operating on the same heat cycle as Steve while trying to avoid both cameras and the tower--oh who the _fuck_ is she kidding. She digs her phone out of her pocket and searches _bucky barnes_ , blows up the first non-blurry image that comes up, and . . . yup. Yuuuuup. 

_Fuck_. 

She is in so much trouble. 

Darcy stuffs an entire waffle into her mouth while silently panicking and the conversation continues without her, back to focused on Sam and Natasha doting on Steve and him giving them shit for it while Clint eats his cereal and makes smart remarks. What’s she supposed to do here? What exactly is the etiquette for _I fucked your MIA POW bestie who you spent almost a year trying to track down ‘til he saw stars and probably also stripes and then let him walk out the front door without so much as giving him my phone number_ , anyway? _Is_ there etiquette for that? 

It probably involves getting deservedly slapped by Captain America, she can’t help but suspect. 

Except . . . 

Well, what the hell is she supposed to do here? Jamie-- _Bucky_ \--Bucky’s still a grown-ass man, that hasn’t changed just because she’s found out exactly _which_ grown-ass man. It’s not any less his choice to walk out of the tower just because Steve Rogers would give his right arm to get him back in it. 

. . . god, she just used that idiom in cold blood and everything, didn’t she. All right, she’s _definitely_ not telling Steve, if only because she’d fuck it up and ruin the little smiles he keeps giving Sam and Natasha even after talking about Bucky and their failed manhunt. She can sit on it, wait a couple days and tell him then; tell him she’d waited because of Bucky or that she hadn’t made the connection until then or . . . something. 

Darcy waits a couple days that she spends reading the worst files in the entire SHIELD datadump, then goes to the elevator to go find Steve and promptly realizes there’s no way she can rat Bucky out. He’s gotten to do so little, gotten to _choose_ so little--how the hell is she supposed to take one of the only decisions he’s gotten to make in seventy years away from him? 

Besides, for all she knows he’s avoiding Steve because he’s got some kind of latent programming he’s trying to avoid triggering or is angry about the train mission or--or _fuck_ , it doesn’t matter anyway, it doesn’t matter if he’s avoiding him because he owes him five _bucks_. He’s avoiding him, and he has the right to. In an ideal world he could’ve, like, said goodbye or left a letter or something, but this sure as hell is not an ideal world. 

Darcy can’t sell him out, even if the only thing she’d really be telling Steve anyway would be _“he was in New York and on your heat cycle”_. Bucky has _nothing_ , last anyone knew, and what kind of asshole would she be to give away one of the few things he does? 

She can’t. 

So she doesn’t. She takes the elevator downstairs instead and goes to the nearest chocolatier and buys two chocolate cheesecake truffles. She eats one in one bite and tucks the other’s little box into her pocket because . . . yeah, because. Then she hits up the pharmacy and buys a new spare toothbrush and new first aid kit and new heat basket and then goes to a department store and gets a new backpack too, which is admittedly a questionable decision on her part, but it’s not until she’s putting the pack of men’s T-shirts into her basket that she realizes what she’s actually doing. 

“ _God_ I’m stupid,” Darcy tells herself, then goes to find socks and jeans and pretends it’s not weird that she remembers Bucky’s size. Or that she ever checked his size to begin with. 

She buys juice, a reusable water bottle, two boxes of granola bars, and a bag of beef jerky, withdraws two hundred bucks from the nearest ATM, and then packs everything into the backpack and stares blankly at it. She doesn’t know what the hell she thinks she’s doing. There’s literally no way he’s going to find it; some other homeless person is going to pick it up. 

Admittedly, she’s done stupid things with worse potential consequences than feeding and clothing a down-on-their-luck stranger. 

She puts the truffle box on top, zips the bag shut, and heads off thinking very strongly about how many people she wanted to tase for Bucky Barnes over the course of the past week. By the time she gets back to the alley she first met him in, the backpack fairly reeks of her protective pheromones: that clinging, claiming scent that burns other alphas’ and betas’ noses and that omegas drink right up. Or so everyone tells her, anyway. 

She figures even if he finds it he’ll just ignore it if it’s not safe for him to take it, so . . . so yeah. She halfheartedly hides the bag under some stray cardboard mostly just to keep it from getting rained on if the weather decides to be shitty, stares at it for a while, then gets up and leaves. She makes it almost all the way back to the tower before she starts crying, which is pretty good, actually. 

Darcy knows she’s acting kind of stupid about this, but normally she’d have gotten to say goodbye to a heat partner properly, even a stranger; they’d have spent that last day together coming down and recovering from the intensity of the experience. She’d have gotten to feed him up a little more and he’d have cozied up to her and they could’ve just relaxed and just _been_ for a while and then very gently coaxed themselves apart at the end of it. 

Especially after a _bond-bite_ heat. 

Without that . . . yeah. She’s gonna be a little irrational for a while, without that. 

There’s literally no reason he’d even go back to that alley. She just wasted a ton of time and money and-- _God_. 

Darcy goes back to the tower and back to the Thor floor, which isn’t making her smile for once, and collapses face-first onto the couch in the common room. She can smell mead and metal from Jane’s room, but only faintly--Thor’s heat is probably over, and they’re probably cuddling up and petting each other all sweet and lovey like she and Bucky didn’t get to. 

She wonders if that’s why he wanted one more round before he left, even after the pheromone rush was over--if that was just the closest thing to the aftercare he could justify to himself. The idea doesn’t make her think any more highly of those past alphas. 

. . . he probably did used to have good alphas, actually. Jim Morita and whoever the other Howling Commando alpha was and maybe Peggy Carter, and hell, the army was probably _spoiled_ for alphas who were dying to rut Captain America’s right-hand man. And that’s not even counting back in Brooklyn when he was a handsome newly-enlisted soldier with a uniform in wartime or even before that, running around with that pretty face and that heart-pounding under-the-lash look. 

He just doesn’t remember any of them. 

So literally everyone he was talking about before . . . 

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_. Darcy squeezes her eyes shut and buries her face tight against the couch, hands fisting against the cushions. All those alphas Bucky alluded to--they were all HYDRA. Those bastards in the alley trying to coax him to come with them, everyone who told him it was his fault they were hurting him when he was vulnerable, everyone who made him treat heat like something strange and confusing and _dreadworthy_ . . . 

They were HYDRA. They were the people who had him in a cell, in that chair, on a fucking _choke chain_ \--

“Darcy,” Jane says, sounding alarmed. Darcy shoves her face deeper into the couch, every muscle tight and pheromones running so hot her skin feels like it’s burning up. She’s probably scenting up the whole damn floor with impotent rage and grief. 

She doesn’t give a _fuck_. 

Jane tries to touch her and Darcy snarls at her and then hates herself for it but just buries her face again instead of doing anything actually _adult_ about the situation. Jane goes away, and a few minutes later Thor comes in and sits on the floor next to the couch and purrs like a lion would, if lions actually purred. Darcy’s pretty sure they don’t, although she doesn’t actually know for certain. 

But he sits there, and he purrs soothingly and pushes in close so the cushions squish underneath her, and it’s not . . . he doesn’t sound like he needs her. He _doesn’t_ need her, obviously, he’s an alien god-prince from time immemorial who also has Jane anyway. 

Bucky needs her. _Jamie_ needs her. Whoever he wants to be, he needs _someone_. His pheromones were crying out for it, so sad and hurt and _lonely_ , so clearly starved for anyone decent to do any _thing_ decent. He asked for her knot and her teeth and let her in against his vulnerable back and he _needs someone_. 

That’s what all that meant, right? 

“Darcy,” Thor says gently, and Darcy drags the nearest throw pillow over her head. “Speak to us, my friend. Tell us what troubles you so.” 

“Heat-bond hangover,” she mutters bitterly, not lifting her head. “He had to leave too quick, it’s--I don’t know if he’s _okay_.” 

“Oh, _Darcy_ ,” Jane says from the other side of the room, crestfallen. “And it’s still going?” 

“Uh-huh,” Darcy manages, nodding uselessly under her throw pillow. Thor purrs and rubs his face into her shoulder, getting the scent of mead and metal everywhere. It helps a little, but not nearly as much as she wishes it would. 

“You should have told us,” Thor tells her. “We would alleviate your discomfort, if you will allow it.” 

“. . . okay,” Darcy mumbles, because--well. He’s right. The hangover’s bad and what it _wants_ is Bucky Barnes or Jamie Thacket, whichever one he wants to be, but another omega’s pheromones can still help alleviate the depression and sadness. 

As long as she doesn’t think too long about how Bucky doesn’t have an alpha on hand to do this for him, anyway. 

Yeah. 

“Okay,” she says again, and Thor lets her pet him for the rest of the evening, and it _does_ help. A little. 

It’s definitely better than the alternative, anyway. 

So yeah, it seems like a perfectly valid idea right up until the next morning, when Steve shows up at the front door of their floor first thing and gives her a sheepish smile. 

“Hi,” he says. “Thor and Tony had something in the lab, so I’m on deck.” 

“Nergh,” Darcy manages in sleepy, slow-dawning horror, gripping the door tight. Okay, no, this is fine, this is fine, she can just--come up with an excuse or something, that won’t be--that’ll be--

“I brought doughnuts,” Steve says, and Darcy lets him in. 

Wait. _Fuck_. 

Steve sets the doughnut box on the kitchen table and neatly sets out napkins for both of them and sits down, and Darcy sits down across from him and hates herself for lying to him. Well--keeping things from him. She also hates herself for taking one look at him and wanting _desperately_ to confess, no matter what Bucky wants or wanted. It’s . . . it’s simultaneous hate, basically. 

God, she is not prepared for this. 

She’s also kind of confused, because Steve brought _her_ food. It’s not exactly the behavior she’d have expected from a guy coming over to soothe her heat-bond hangover, seeing as normally it’d be the other way around. Then again, Steve apparently isn’t a big fan of alpha’s dens; maybe it’s a coping strategy for him. Or . . . something. 

“Soooo . . . uh, how’s _your_ post-heat going?” Darcy tries lamely, wishing the earth would open up and swallow her even as she says it. 

“All right,” Steve replies, carefully extricating a doughnut from the box. “Sam and Natasha aren’t letting me back in their pants for another two nights, but I can’t really complain, I didn’t think it was going to be that aggressive either.” 

“‘Aggressive’,” Darcy repeats blankly, yearning for a bucket of cold water to upend over her head. 

“I get pretty demanding, I guess,” Steve says without so much as a drop of embarrassment, then takes a bite of doughnut. Darcy stares past his shoulder for a long, long moment. _Demanding_ , she mouths to herself, and literally cannot form any coherent thoughts on the subject. “Especially since the serum. Once Bucky told me if I didn’t get Carter to make a mother out of me first thing once the war was over he was clearing out for California to get off my cycle before it killed him.” 

“Uh.” Darcy blinks and refocuses, a little surprised that Steve would just mention him like that. She’s never known him that well, honestly, it just seems like the kind of card he’d keep close to his chest what with everything else. 

Then again, he’s probably spent the past near year practicing for convincing the free world that James Buchanan Barnes is not the Winter Soldier, so yeah. Maybe not that unexpected after all. 

“Do you want to tell me about him?” she asks tentatively, because she is just the worst fucking person alive, apparently. Or second-worst, maybe, after every living soul that ever laid a hand on Bucky Barnes in anything but self-defense. Steve gives her a sad smile and she immediately regrets asking even though he’s the one who brought Bucky up to begin with. 

“He’s my friend,” Steve says. "Not sure if he remembers that right now, but he’s always been my friend. Known him since we were kids. Hell, I knew him before we were even old enough to _scent_ proper, back when everybody took one look and assumed he was some little knothead lunk trying to sniff around my skirts a couple years early--uh, no offense.” 

“None taken,” Darcy manages, still feeling nauseous.

“We still used to shack up together when we heated up, mind,” Steve adds, smirking briefly at her. _I know,_ Darcy doesn’t say, although she does _picture_ it--and of course she’s only got one mental picture for both of them, so of _course_ what she pictures is Bucky shivering in the bath with the vibrator and Steve . . . yeah. 

Well, she already knows that she’s a horrible person. Picturing Steve helping his lifelong best friend come in from the cold as literally as freaking possible is not the worst thing she’s ever done. That special distinction is reserved for not telling him about said lifelong best friend spending a week on her knot and then asking him about him over doughnuts. 

“Kinky,” she tries instead, and Steve’s smirk turns into this funny little humorless smile. 

“I guess,” he says. “We didn’t think it was kinky, we just liked each other better than any of the rutters in the neighborhood. They were always chasin’ Buck’s tail but didn’t think too highly of me, so he’d get all riled up, tell ‘em to screw off, and come bunk down with me. And, well . . . I mean, I wasn’t exactly complaining.” 

“Were you guys, uh . . . together?” Darcy asks hesitantly, not sure she wants the answer but asking anyway. Steve shrugs. 

“No,” he says. “I don’t know if it would’ve been different if we _could’ve_ been together, but it wasn’t like now, where omegas can, you know, get hitched and adopt or inseminate. Best we could’ve hoped for was being old maids together or finding an alpha who’d keep us both, and even that was a little funny then. We talked about staying in France after the war, sometimes--they didn’t care so much about those kinds of arrangements.” 

“With Peggy Carter?” Darcy guesses, her stupid mouth apparently deciding she needs to go for the hat trick on pulling shitty moves today. Of course reminding him of a young and healthy Peggy Carter and the life they might’ve been planning together is the thing to do here. Of _course_ it is. 

“Maybe,” Steve says, his eyes dimming a little. “She and Bucky didn’t always know if they liked each other but, uh, he definitely liked her _knot_. And I mean . . . I didn’t really _want_ to be a mother right after the war, to be honest, but Bucky--well, he’d always . . .” 

He trails off, and Darcy pictures Peggy Carter and Captain America running around the 1950s with the SSR while Bucky Barnes stayed home to keep house with a sweet little litter of dark-haired pups clinging to his ankles. She kind of wants to cry just thinking about it, and she’s not even one of the people actually _involved_ in it. 

Bucky couldn’t have that even if he came in from the cold right now. He’s never going to get to have that. 

“I’m sure he’s okay,” she says finally, helplessly, because what else is she going to do? She wants to convince herself just as much as she wants to convince Steve. “I mean . . . like, he’s this master covert-ops assassin, he can get by. He’ll be all right alone.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agrees with a nod, voice quiet. “But the thing is, he doesn’t have to be.” 

Darcy doesn’t really know what to say to that. 

Steve stays all morning and between the two of them they demolish the whole box of doughnuts. He lets her make him hot cocoa and take him into the living room to sit him on the floor in front of the couch and give him a shoulder massage, and he tells her stories about the Commandos and Peggy Carter. A couple about Bucky too, but not very many, and absolutely none at all about SHIELD or the STRIKE team, which yeah, Darcy does not blame him for skipping over. He doesn’t seem to mind that she’s awkward in the conversation, and she guesses he’s assuming it’s because of the heat-bond hangover. 

It is, a little. 

But definitely only a little. 

Steve hugs a few of the throw pillows and rubs his face and pheromones all over them before he leaves, which is weirdly adorable and also weirdly gratifying and somehow sort of hot at the same time because now she knows what Captain America would look like as a pillowbiter. And if she hugs said pillows a little herself while she watches a few episodes of Cake Boss on the couch, well, that’s between her and the surveillance system and also J.A.R.V.I.S. and probably Tony, actually, if it ever occurs to him to check. 

Thor comes back at noon and Darcy orders takeout for them, and he lets her brush and braid his hair and pretend like she’s not picking things she’d have done for Bucky if she’d had the chance. That arm can’t sit easy on his shoulder, she’s sure, and he hadn’t brushed his hair for himself once the whole heat. They eat on the couch and Thor talks about stuff that makes absolutely no sense to Darcy and then she talks about stuff that makes absolutely no sense to him and it’s nice, and also awful. 

She feels better, but feeling “better” actually makes her feel _worse_. Bucky doesn’t have an alpha doing this for him. She’s _positive_ he doesn’t. How is it okay for her to let a bunch of omegas way too good for the human race pander to her protective instincts while he’s alone? 

Then Thor has a training room session scheduled with Clint and Natasha and tells Darcy that Tony said she could come by his lab and hold things for him for his turn, so that takes care of the “way too good” omegas, at least, _Jesus_. 

She goes, of course, and makes him a vengefully delicious smoothie and corrals his robots out of his way when they get too excited and try to help. She cleans up the workshop a bit, but not too much because she’s pretty sure it’s more Tony’s den then his bedroom’s ever been and that’d be weird. It definitely smells like omega down there, at least. 

So she does that, makes sure Tony actually drinks his smoothies, and then goes for a walk. 

Three blocks and infinite weird twisty turns later, the backpack is gone.


	6. traffic light etiquette

Darcy gets over the heat-bond hangover. It’s harder than it should be, especially knowing that Bucky’s got no one helping him do the same, but no one says anything about how long it takes her. She maybe spends a little more time hanging around the betas in the tower for the calming effects of their pheromones, but otherwise it’s business as usual by the end of the week. Besides, Erik still occasionally needs the supervision and Clint’s cool, so it’s not like it’s an imposition. 

She tries to avoid Bruce, admittedly, but that’s more because she’s worried about the effects of the imposition on _him_. He survives Tony okay, but she doesn’t actually know how many spoons that takes, so yeah, better safe than epically, disastrously sorry. 

She concentrates on work, since she’s been pretty damn useless for a full two weeks now. It’s not like Jane really needs her for the science, but the general paperwork’s piling up and _someone_ needs to make sure she and Erik are both wearing semi-clean clothes and have brushed their hair in the past three days and also, you know, _eaten_. She E-mails Ian and tells him nothing incriminating, for both their sakes, and does not think about the backpack. 

She doesn’t even know if it was Bucky who took it. Statistically it _wasn’t_ Bucky who took it. Even if he’d had any reason to go back to that stupid alley, he’d have had to get there pretty much exactly after she’d left not to get beaten to it by somebody. 

So she doesn’t think about it. She does the paperwork, she makes Jane and Erik shower like real people and consume things that are not coffee or Pop-Tarts and occasionally leave the lab, even if only to go to Tony and _Bruce’s_ lab. She commiserates about dumb scientists with no sense of self-preservation with Pepper and Rhodey (and internally screams with giddy fangirl glee like every time because _Pepper Potts and Rhodey Rhodes_ ), and tries not to die of jealousy every time she sees Jane scent Thor or Pepper affectionately pat down Tony’s hair or Sam and Natasha converge on Steve to fuss at and put their hands all over him while he tries not to laugh--all the sweet, lovey stuff omegas let alphas they trust do for them, although it really doesn’t clear up the whole bonding/not bonding thing with Sam and Natasha and Steve. 

All the stuff Bucky isn’t getting from anyone. 

Another couple weeks go by like that before Rhodey starts smelling faintly like ozone and Tony starts reeking aggressively of tequila and motor oil, which is no less weird a combination than it was the last time Darcy smelled it. They have a _really loud_ argument in the lab and then both disappear into the penthouse while Pepper starts looking very mildly stressed and reschedules a lot of appointments. Darcy absently wonders if they’re synced now and also if this ups the chances of all the omegas in the Avengers ending up on the same cycle, because she’s pretty sure Tony and Rhodey were at least two weeks off each other before, and Tony was _definitely_ a full month and a half off from Thor and probably a good two months from Steve, depending on the direction you count in. 

And yeah, it’s literally only going to take one bad guy working out exactly which days out of the usual three-month cycle the Avengers are _all_ mysteriously missing on for the world to end up in a whole _mess_ of trouble. Hell, a blogger will probably do it for them before they even think of it themselves. 

Bruce would have to break a lot more than Harlem, in that scenario. 

Pepper heads up to the penthouse, Steve and Sam take off on the latest leg of their epic Bucky hunt, Natasha goes with, and Clint gets moody and bored without his BFF around and starts spending all his free time on the range with his incendiary arrows. Jane and Erik are busy with something complicated involving Asgardian weaponry or possibly Asgardian children’s toys, it’s seriously hard to tell, and Thor runs back to Asgard for something, although he leaves in kind of a rush and Darcy doesn’t actually catch what. Bruce looks blissfully at peace alone in his lab, so she makes a point of avoiding it. 

It’s quiet at the tower, is her point. Not much to do. 

Then two days into Tony and Rhodey’s shared heat (which Darcy has in _no_ way been picturing _any_ of, for the record), J.A.R.V.I.S. relays a video call to the lab. 

“What the hell,” Darcy says in bemusement as a holographic screen with Johnny Storm’s face on it pops up overhead. Erik curses and recoils under his desk, and Jane squints suspiciously. 

“Hey there, hot stuff,” Johnny greets, managing to get a genuinely impressive amount of leer through the screen. “See, it’s funny ‘cause I’m--annnd none of you are Rescue, crap.” 

“Iron Man and War Machine went into heat,” Jane says, still squinting suspiciously. “She’s with them.” 

“Black Widow?” Johnny asks hopefully. 

“In Europe, maybe,” Darcy replies, putting down her pen and frowning dubiously at him. She doesn’t really know the guy, though he’s called a few times on superhero business and she’s seen plenty of him on TV. Another stupidly cocky male alpha despite a surprising resemblance to Steve, although at least he and the rest of the Fantastic Four occasionally skip their latest weird science expedition to help save the day. 

Also, Tony checked and he’s not a clone. Or the kid of a baby from a secret wartime tryst. Or the clone of a baby from a--anyway, getting off-topic. 

“Possibly South America,” she continues, folding her arms on her desk. “Maybe India?” 

“My _life_ ,” Johnny says mournfully, dropping his head into his hands. “Okay, great, awesome, I’m officially out of available alphas who owe me favors. Someone please tell me there’s another rutter with the Avengers who owes one of _them_ a favor. Please.” 

“Natasha Romanoff owes you a favor?” Darcy asks disbelievingly, raising an eyebrow at him. “Wait, scratch that: _Pepper Potts_ owes you a favor?” Natasha actually trades favors for convenience’s sake sometimes; Pepper generally just steamrollers people with money and blithe smiles. And that’s without counting the occasional fire-breathing episode. 

“Well, part of said favor may be contingent on me never explaining how she actually owes me it, but yes, yes she does,” Johnny replies, mouth quirking smugly. “But seriously, anyone? Maybe, I don’t know, a _fireproof_ anyone? Like is Thor an alpha, is that a thing?” 

“Uh, what?” Jane asks, giving him a bemused look, and Darcy catches up a little late but does, at least, catch up. 

“Wait, you’re an _omega_?” she asks, kind of bemused. Darcy tries not to judge people by appearances, generally speaking, but Johnny Storm absolutely _screams_ “knothead jock”. 

“Is that not a thing everyone knows?” Johnny asks, looking equally bemused. “Okay, look, so the thing is I’ve been kinda seeing this Inhuman girl--her name’s Crystal, she’s _amazing_ , remind me to introduce you next time the world’s ending--anyway, long story short her sister’s pissed about something and she may or may not be on the moon right now working it out and I just really, _really_ need a heat partner who isn’t gonna freak if the sheets get a little scorched. So . . . got any more alpha Avengers? Any?” 

“‘Inhuman’?” Erik repeats blankly as he peeks out from under his desk, which is admittedly a really important question but also not actually the issue that currently needs addressed. 

“ _We’re_ alphas, genuis,” Darcy snorts, giving him a dry look and pointing between herself and Jane. Not that they’re Avengers, of course, and normally she’d be nicer to an omega who’s apparently in pre-heat, but he really doesn’t give even a hint of that vibe. And it’s not like she can smell him or anything. 

“. . . really?” Johnny says, face lighting up as he immediately gives her a look like she’s fucking _Christmas_. Darcy eyes him, then gives up. It’s not like she’d ever leave an omega in the lurch, even one she’s really only communicated with through the occasional sarcastic video call, although the whole looking at her like she’s Christmas thing is admittedly helping here. 

But seriously, if he smells even slightly like either apple pie or cinnamon, she’s _killing_ something. 

“All right, looks like I’m going to the Baxter Building to make a terrible mistake,” she tells Jane with a sigh, closing her laptop to pack up as Johnny makes a delighted noise. “Try to remember to eat, okay?” 

“I make no promises,” Jane says, which . . . well, at least she’s honest. 

Darcy packs her messenger bag with heat snacks and juice bottles and condoms and a cute little box of candied fruit slices, then catches a cab to the Baxter Building and gets buzzed up by the doorman. She can smell Johnny Storm’s pheromones the moment the elevator doors open, even with as big and full of dubious-looking science experiments as the main floor she’s looking down on is. They’re surprisingly sweet, a heady hothouse-flower combination that Darcy can’t quite pin down; she gets one whiff of them and literally _feels_ her eyes dilate. 

“Jesus, no wonder you got the heartbreaker rep,” she says. Johnny ducks into view from behind one of the machines downstairs and grins up at her for a moment before bursting into flames and throwing himself the thirty feet into the air to land on the catwalk in extremely impressive and probably dangerous fashion. Darcy tries very hard not to be wooed, which is hard because being on fire is a _really_ good look for Johnny Storm. 

“I try,” he says with a crooked smirk as the flames disperse gorgeously, then grabs her by the hand and drags her straight down the catwalk past a dubious Ben Grimm and his neutral-smelling beta pheromones, down the hall, and into--presumably--Johnny’s room. He doesn’t nest, apparently, or if he does it’s just by halfheartedly making his bed, and it’s pretty casual and cluttered. 

And it _reeks_ like hothouse flowers. 

“Jesus,” Darcy repeats, and Johnny smirks smugly at her. It smells like he must’ve scented the damn _walls_ , which normally she would find ridiculous but right now is just really, really hot. “You are just . . . wow, you do not screw around, do you.” 

“Nah, not so much,” Johnny says, moving into her space with a little grin and lifting his hands to cup her face in his hands. Darcy’s a little surprised--not by the contact, she’s met pushy omegas before, just by the suddenness of it. Something in her gut twinges as she thinks of Bucky and how much he’d held himself back, but she pushes it away. She’s here with _this_ omega, and he needs her; he deserves her full attention just as much as Bucky did when _he_ needed her. 

. . . okay, maybe slightly less. But that’s less a slight on Johnny and more the seventy-year backlog on the things Bucky Barnes deserves in life. 

Thoughts like that are not keeping her focused, though. 

“Okay, clearly you’re pretty on it already,” she says, lifting her hands to cover the backs of Johnny’s and giving them a little squeeze. At least he’s confident enough that she’s not worried about putting him off discussing things. “What can I do for you?” 

“Well, this is a crazy idea, but I was _thinking_ you could knot me,” Johnny replies, waggling his eyebrows at her pointedly. 

“Never heard that joke before,” Darcy retorts dryly, giving his hands another squeeze. She’s pretty sure she’d already be kissing him, usually, but after her last heat partner experience, well--she’d just really rather know what she was doing was working for him from the start. “Come on, I’m behind on my tabloids, I don’t know what you’re into this month.” 

“Hey, I’m good with whatever, you know I’m easy,” Johnny laughs, leaning in to go for a kiss.

“No, seriously,” Darcy sighs, putting a hand on his chest to stop him. Johnny leans back a little and ducks his head in maybe the only omega-ish gesture she’s ever seen from him. 

“You know I’m easy,” he says again, a little differently. “You could, you know. Tell me that.”

“How?” Darcy asks, relaxing slightly. Okay, _now_ they’re getting somewhere.

“Tell me, uh--” Johnny glances at the floor, his semi-permanent smirk fading a little. “That I’m, you know, a whore or whatever. When you’re touching me. And you can be a little rough, if you want. Slap me or shove me around. Tell me I'm stupid.”

“Okay,” she says, watching him carefully. He doesn’t elaborate, so she guesses that’s on her. “Anything I _shouldn’t_ say? Or do?”

“I’m good,” Johnny replies, shrugging dismissively.

“Uh-huh,” Darcy replies slowly, really not sure she believes that but also not sure he’s going to admit to anything straight out either. Because right, cocky fucking bastard, of _course_ he doesn’t want to admit anything straight out. “What’s your safe word?”

“Wow, talking the talk, Lewis!” Johnny snickers, grinning widely at her. “Don’t have one. Not much of an omega if I need a safe word, am I?”

“That’s . . . a theory,” Darcy says, genuinely wondering if every non-superhero-affiliated alpha in the world is just _scum_. The possibility is seeming increasingly likely as of late. “I’d rather use one, though. Traffic lights okay?”

“Uh--sure,” Johnny says, frowning a little in a way that immediately convinces her he has no idea what she means.

“Green means go, yellow for slow down, and red for stop,” she says after a moment. His frown deepens, but she pushes on before he can get offended. “Repeat it for me, please?”

“Green go, yellow slow, red stop,” Johnny rattles off impatiently, already looking bored. Darcy’s not really surprised, given what she knows of the guy, but still irritated with pretty much every other alpha in New York and possibly also one currently on the moon. 

“Good,” she says, then moves on. “All right, what about other stuff? Any preferences? Like, do you like being fingered, can I do that before I knot you?”

“Well, if you _insist_ ,” Johnny says allowingly, stepping back and smirking at her again with the familiar cockiness back in place before turning around and reaching back to pat lightly against the neck of his suit. “Unzip me?”

“That excited to show me your panties, baby?” Darcy asks with an echoing smirk, running her fingers up the line of his zipper and making a pleased noise when his pheromones spike at the touch. All right, she might need to be a little careful, but she’s pretty sure he’s going to make it worth it. And really, like being careful with an omega is even a real imposition. “Oh, you _are_ , aren’t you.”

“Actually, my last pair went up in flames a couple years ago,” Johnny says, grinning back at her. Darcy glazes over briefly at the revelation that Reed Richards apparently did not see fit to design superhero underwear to go with the skintight suits his ridiculously hot brother-in-law, best friend, and mate run around in on the regular, and for the first time she thinks he might not be a _complete_ dick. 

Or maybe this just means he is an ultra, ultra dick. She’s not actually sure. 

“The fact you guys don’t wear underwear might be the best thing I’ve learned all month,” she muses absently, appreciating the view for a moment as Johnny preens under the attention and then refocusing, because he _did_ ask for--“Or is that just you? Are you just that eager for it?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, alpha,” Johnny replies, grinning even more smugly.

“I dunno, I think I can already tell,” Darcy says, putting a hand on the small of his back to push him towards the bed. “I mean, you want that off so _bad_ , omega. Can unstable molecules not handle getting wet?”

“I’m not wet,” Johnny says, voice going a little breathless.

“ _That’s_ a lie,” Darcy scoffs, dropping her hand to cup his ass instead and giving a pointed squeeze. “I can _smell_ what a lie that is. Your hole started dripping the second you found out Jane and I were alphas.”

“So what if it did?” Johnny says, his eyes half-hooded. He looks halfway to drop already, which makes her wonder if he was holding off his heat symptoms all this time or if he just gets off _that_ hard on being talked to like this. Not that it matters, she supposes, as long as he gets what he needs.

“Bend over,” she orders shortly, sliding her hand up his spine to grip the back of his neck. Johnny goes down immediately and catches himself against the mattress, locking his elbows and keeping his feet planted on the floor. “God, you’re _so_ easy. Wouldn’t Crystal be pissed if she saw you sticking your ass out like this for me?”

“She might get off on it, actually,” Johnny snickers, giving said ass a little wiggle. Darcy slaps it sharply, more loud than actually _hard_ , but he still chokes.

“Fucking _greedy_ ,” she snorts, digging her fingers in. The fabric’s slick and alien underneath her fingers, something new and strange to touch. “I know you’re gagging for it, whore, but two knots at once?”

Johnny _whimpers_ at that, arms nearly giving out for a second; Darcy keeps an eye on them, watching for signs of the _bad_ stress. She doesn’t want to leave him in the lurch but she’s still not convinced he’ll use the safe words unprompted, so she needs to be prepared to do the prompting. 

“Well, they do say two heads are better than one,” he manages a few seconds late with a strangled laugh. Darcy slaps his ass again for it, harder this time.

“Can you not control that smart mouth on your own?” she demands, still keeping careful watch on the way his head immediately drops and his arms tremble. “Or is all this lip just because you want me to shut you up with my clit? Well too _fucking_ bad, sluts don’t get to whine about getting what they asked for.” 

“I _didn’t_ ask,” Johnny huffs out breathlessly, which is true. But it not being true is kind of the point, as far as Darcy’s concerned. She runs her fingers up his crack and slaps him with the other hand when he jerks at the contact. 

“And there you go fucking wagging that slutty ass at me!” she snaps. “Did I say you could do that? Half of New York’s had that, why are you bragging about being sloppy seconds? Stay fucking _still_.” 

“Yes, alpha,” Johnny chokes. Darcy pushes her thumb in tight behind his balls and his arms nearly give out again. 

“Put your face in the mattress where it belongs,” she orders shortly, pressing in with just the edge of her nail. Johnny goes immediately and without bending his knees at all, face smashed into the tangled blankets and ass presented perfectly. Darcy rewards him by wrapping her fingers around his balls and squeezing roughly through the suit, and he moans. 

“Whore,” she growls, squeezing again, and his pheromones spike pleadingly. “Jesus, doesn’t that hurt? Are you _wet_ for this?”

“No, alpha,” Johnny manages. Darcy presses her nail in and he tries to squirm away; she tightens her grip on his balls again.

“Don’t _lie_ to me, slut,” she growls. “Tell me you’re wet for this.” 

“I’m _not_ ,” Johnny whines protestingly, voice cracking. The tone is petulant but his body’s responsive and his pheromones still smell sweet, all lush and inviting with no trace of distress, so Darcy figures they’re still good to go. 

“How stupid _are_ you?” she snorts derisively, cupping his balls in her fingers and grinding the heel of her hand into his perineum. “You don’t really think I’d believe that when you’re already squirming like you’ve got a knot in you, do you? You think just ‘cause you’re wearing your suit I can’t tell you’re fucking _sopping_?” 

“Alpha,” Johnny whines, pushing his ass back into her hand. Darcy pinches him and he yelps again, squirming forward uncomfortably. “Not--don’t pinch me, feels weird,” he pants, grimacing, and she immediately flattens her hand against his flank.

“Color?” she asks. 

“Wh-- _green_ , Jesus, just don’t _pinch_ me,” he says in frustration, squirming turning impatient. “C’mon, don’t _stop_.”

Under different circumstances she might’ve wanted more than that in answer, but _”don’t pinch me”_ is pretty straightforward, so Darcy lets it go and just resolves to be a little more careful. They really don’t know each other that well, after all. 

“Demanding bitch,” she says, slapping his ass again and earning another jolt and stifled moan in response, which just makes her next hit harder. “When you’re all sloppy and stupid just from a little rubbing, too. You’re not even _worth_ knotting, you’d probably cream your suit before I even got it off you.”

“I wouldn’t!” Johnny blurts, pressing his face into the bed. For a second Darcy thinks he’s still defensive and she went back in too hard, but then she realizes that what he actually means is--“I won’t come before you knot me, okay, I won’t.”

“Yes you will,” Darcy snorts, sliding her fingers up his crack again to work her thumb against his hole. “Easy little thing like you, I bet you could come just like this, just me feeling you up through this glorified Spandex you like to show off so much.”

“No, no, I’ll be _good_ , alpha,” Johnny pleads before muffling another whine in the sheets, his shoulders hunching. “I’ll be worth it, I _will_. Please.” 

“Please what?” Darcy takes her thumb away and presses the tip of a finger against him instead, like she’s intending to penetrate. She keeps looking out for notes of distress or uncertainty in his pheromones, but only picks up pleading lust. “Please look at my slutty hole, alpha? Please put something _in_ my slutty hole, alpha?”

_“Yes!”_ Johnny chokes, pheromones spiking so hot Darcy’s not sure the temperature of the room didn’t just jump, and she gives his ass a harsh slap with her free hand. He keens into the bed, tilting his hips into the hit, so she hits him again and presses her finger tighter against his hole.

“No,” she says. “Sluts don’t get it every time they shake their ass, they take it when they’re _told_ to.”

“I--” Johnny starts, and Darcy shoves the tip of her finger into his hole, the fabric stretching effortlessly with the pressure and Johnny letting out a shocky shout and jerking back against her; she takes her hand away immediately and he starts keening again, thighs shaking. “Alpha, alpha _please_ \--”

“When I _tell_ you,” she reminds him, tracing a finger up his crack to rub circles against his hole again. The room reeks so strongly of hothouse flowers that Darcy’s not actually sure her clit is ever going to be soft _again_. “If a stupid whore like you got a knot every time you asked for it you’d spend your whole fucking life getting passed from lap to lap.”

“Ahh-- _ahhhhh_ ,” Johnny whimpers senselessly, his fingers white-knuckled in the sheets and his breath coming out steam. Darcy internally freaks out a little because it is going to hurt a _lot_ if he bursts into flames while she’s rutting him, but also glazes over because fuuuuck, she just made an omega _steam_. That is . . . that is distracting. “I want in your lap, alpha, plea-- _ah_!” he cuts off on a yelp as she slaps him again, this time just behind his balls.

“What did I say?” she snaps, bringing her hand down across his ass again. Johnny turns his head just enough to smirk breathlessly back at her, and the sheets _smoke_ under his hands. Darcy plants a foot in the back of his thigh and shoves, and he collapses against the bed with a sharp exhalation and another elated pheromone spike. She steps between his legs and drops a knee onto the mattress, pressed up tight between them. He immediately moans for it, hips rubbing back. She leans over and braces a hand on the small of his back. “Did I give you permission to do that? Tell me when sluts take it.”

“When--when we’re told to,” Johnny groans, shuddering against the bed.

“That’s right,” Darcy says, rubbing her thigh against him until he’s squirming. She’s frankly amazed he hasn’t soaked right through the suit, the way he smells right now. “And whose slut are you?”

“Yours, _yours_ , alpha, I’m your slut,” Johnny babbles out quickly, tilting his hips back for her. Darcy smacks him again and he bites down on his own arm to muffle a curse.

“According to fucking _who_?” she snaps. “Did I say I wanted you, idiot? Would your girlfriend get off on hearing _that_?”

“N-no, I--I--” Johnny trips up on the words, voice stuttering as his shoulders hunch and distress suddenly bleeds into his pheromones, scent and mood both turning on a dime and the atmosphere around him completely changing.

_Fuck,_ Darcy thinks, tensing reflexively. She opens her mouth to ask him for a color, but--

_“Red!”_ Johnny blurts in a panicked, cracked voice. Darcy jerks her hands back off him immediately, alarmed by the level of upset in his tone, and he just as immediately bursts into tears and covers his head with his arms. “Nonono, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry, I can do it, I _can_ I’m sorry--”

“Shhhhh,” she manages, immediately hating herself for saying--whichever thing, the not wanting him part or the part about Crystal, either one probably could’ve done it. She should’ve made him tell her more, _fuck_. “Don’t be sorry, omega, you did so good for me. You used your safe word just like I asked you to. Can I touch you again?”

“Yes, I--I can _do_ it,” Johnny insists, and Darcy lays down on the bed beside him and wonders what the hell he thinks “it” actually _is_ in this situation. 

“Come here, omega,” she soothes lowly, wrapping her arms around him and tugging his head in against her neck so he can scent her. “You _did_ do it, sweetheart, you did just what you were supposed to.” 

“I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me,” Johnny chokes wetly, burrowing into her tight. 

“You’re all heated up, baby. Feeling sensitive is normal,” Darcy murmurs, nuzzling him gently as she pushes a hand through his hair. Johnny should know that as well as anyone, but she knows it can be hard to recognize from the inside. Rutbrain’s the same way. “You miss Crystal a lot, huh?” 

“I--yeah,” Johnny admits, voice cracking as he curls in even tighter against her. “I’m not . . . look, we just started dating a couple months ago, okay, and she said it _was_ okay. I just--I wanted it to _be_ her.” 

“Oh, _baby_ ,” Darcy says, squeezing him tighter with a stricken expression. An omega with their heart set on their first heat with a romantic partner getting left without them at the last minute--she never would’ve said anything even _implying_ Crystal might be upset with him if she’d realized. 

Fuck, she _should’ve_ realized, no matter how he’d been acting about it. She hadn’t even thought to ask. 

“Dammit, I swear I’m not usually such a freaking _freak_ ,” Johnny groans, rolling away and dragging a pillow over his face. Darcy frowns, reaching out to pet his stomach. 

"Anybody'd be upset to lose their heat partner at the last minute," she says, voice as gentle as she knows how to make it. Probably not gentle enough, but . . . well, it _is_ Johnny Storm she’s talking to. "There's nothing wrong with how you're being. You were perfect for me, baby. You’re _still_ being perfect for me."

“Mmmrgh.” Johnny lifts the pillow, grimacing uncomfortably. “It’s stupid. I like that stuff. Usually I _love_ that stuff.” 

“It’s not stupid.” Darcy kisses his cheek. “Tell me what I can do for you. What do you want?” Johnny frowns, face turning towards her again but eyes flicking down. 

“Just--knot me,” he mutters. “Knot me and tell me . . . tell me--” 

“Tell you what?” Darcy asks, stroking the side of his face. He grimaces again, but tilts into the contact. 

“Tell me you like me,” he says, still not looking at her. 

“I _do_ like you,” Darcy replies immediately, kissing his cheek in relief. This is so much easier than the other stuff. “I like you a lot, dude, you are a badass world-saving astronaut who does extreme sports on the weekends and publically sasses super-villains on the regular. What’s _not_ to like?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, still grimacing, and Darcy cups his face in her hands and kisses him again. 

“I like you,” she repeats between kisses, pressing in close against him. “I like you, I like you, I _like_ you. I wanna feed you candy and kiss you all over and make you feel fucking _great_.” 

“Okay, okay, I get it already, Lewis,” Johnny says, blushing under the attention before wrapping his arms around her and kissing back. His pheromones are sweet and heady and all stirred up again and she rumbles approvingly, running a hand up his back. He stretches underneath it and starts making soft little noises, his fingers curling in the fabric of her sweater. 

She remembers, belatedly, that Bucky was uncomfortable rubbing up on the sweater she’d been wearing before, but Johnny doesn’t seem to mind this one. She strips it off anyway, not sure it won’t end up too much for him later, and then the shirt underneath while she’s at it. Johnny makes a delighted noise and goes right for the clasp of her bra. Darcy rolls her eyes good-naturedly and ruffles his hair, then reaches over his shoulder to finally unzip the back of his suit. 

“You’re adorable,” she says wryly, helping him peel it off. Unstable molecules are surprisingly easier to strip out of than she would’ve expected, with the vacuum-sealed look of the actual uniforms, but also surprisingly good at restraining scent, because _holy shit_ , do his pheromones get about ten times stronger with it off. “Jesus, you smell so good I might knot right _now_.” 

Also, he was telling the truth about the underwear. 

_Fuck_. 

“I will kick you off the bed if you knot anyplace but _in_ me, I swear,” Johnny grumbles, tugging pointedly at her jeans, and Darcy laughs and wriggles out of them, kissing up his throat as she does. He whines impatiently but by then they’re both naked and end up rolling clumsily around the mattress for a while, hands wandering. Johnny is ticklish, which is fucking _hilarious_ , but unfortunately also leads him to finding out _she’s_ ticklish and--yeahhh, okay, they’re never getting anywhere this way. 

“I’m Instagramming this,” she threatens, and he laughs at her and grabs his phone off the nightstand to take a selfie himself. “Shit, no, not _really_!” she squawks, and they wrestle for it right up until she ends up sprawled over his back and the brat _cheats_ by rubbing his ass back against her clit. “Ohhhh you-- _you_.” 

“ _Fuck_ me, rutter,” Johnny purrs, rubbing back against her again. Darcy buries her face in his shoulder with a few stifled curses, then rolls off to fumble for the condoms in her bag. Johnny laughs again as she digs to the bottom looking for just one--stupid--thank _fuck_. 

“Assume the position, sweetcheeks,” she tells him with a smirk as she brandishes the condom, and he keeps laughing but pushes his hips up and pulls his knees under himself to present fucking _gorgeously_ , all wet and sweet and downright mouthwatering. 

“You are a weird, weird woman, Lewis,” he tells her, grinning into the sheets. 

“Says the guy who lights himself on fire for a living,” Darcy huffs as she knee-walks up behind him and rolls on the condom neatly. He just snickers at her and tilts his ass back invitingly, and she has to take a moment to mentally short out at how fucking _hot_ he is. It’s just . . . it’s terrible, seriously, no wonder he’s incorrigible. 

“What’s the hold-up, Lewis?” Johnny purrs, smug and _clearly_ perfectly aware of exactly what said hold-up is. 

“You’re hot, deal with it,” she snorts in reply, taking herself in hand and pushing into him. He moans happily, stretching like a cat, and she leans over him and drops a kiss behind his ear. “I like you,” she reminds him in a murmur, and he whimpers. And then she rolls her hips in, and he _whines_. She wonders if the dirty talk and insults followed by praise is SOP for what Johnny likes, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s what he _wants_ , and her protect and provide instincts have only increased since . . . well, since the obvious. 

Darcy really wishes she could’ve done better for the obvious. 

Johnny makes a whole mess of happy, horny noises as she ruts him, squirming against the mattress and back onto her clit, and Darcy relaxes into it, sets up a steady rhythm that makes him purr as sweet as anything and sends his hormone spikes spiralling wildly out of control. She was wrong about the room before; _now_ it reeks of hothouse flowers, sweet and bright and deliciously cloying, so strong she can outright _taste_ it when she breathes. 

“ _So_ hot, sweetie,” she husks, nuzzling the back of his neck but not even teasing her teeth--there’s no _way_ he wants a bond-bite and she’s not sure he wouldn’t get distressed with just the offer. “Crystal’s so lucky, I bet she can’t wait to get back to you.” 

Johnny blushes and grumbles and whines for her clit and Darcy keeps the same steady pace, knowing it’ll get them there sooner or later, and Johnny spends most of the “getting there” trying to be mouthy with hit-or-miss success. By the time they actually knot, he’s just a purring mess all curled up in the tangled blankets. Tangled and slightly _charred_ blankets. 

Darcy’s not complaining, since she’s the rumbling mess all curled around him and also not the charred part. 

“Feel better, sweetie?” she murmurs breathlessly against his ear, tightening her arms around him as her breath makes him shudder and clench up around her knot. “Ooo, _spoiling_ me.” 

“Shut up,” Johnny purrs in retort, blissfully sated pheromones rolling off him in waves as he turns his head just enough to nuzzle her. Darcy laughs under her breath and nuzzles back, then kisses down his throat. 

“You were perfect,” she tells him, and gets another grumbly purr in response as she tugs him back tighter against her chest. “ _Totally_ perfect.” 

“Mmm, quit rambling and gimme some of that candy you brought,” Johnny says, snuggling into her contentedly and reaching back with one hand to make grabby fingers at her. 

“And a perfect _brat_ ,” Darcy laughs, nuzzling him again but already reaching for the candied fruit, because of course she’s already reaching for it. She feeds Johnny a few slices, he purrs some more, and they cuddle up comfortably in his not-remotely-a-nest, and it’s sweet and comfortable and _is_ perfect, so far as heat goes. Johnny is warm and happy and his pheromones radiate contentment, and Darcy’s hindbrain is pleased and smug to have her knot filling up a strong, beautiful omega who reeks of satisfaction and the low-simmering desire for as much contact as she can give him. 

Except for how Darcy keeps thinking about Bucky, and the uneasy feeling pricking at the back of her mind that makes her feel like somehow she’s left him out in the cold.


	7. tomorrow in australia

Johnny’s heat lasts about two and a half days, and Darcy spends it doting on him with adoring words and candied fruit while he alternately pretends he doesn’t want the attention and basks under it. Basks under it _ruthlessly_. 

It’s pretty fucking adorable, actually. 

They spend the last half day just cuddled up in bed while she pets his hair and he waxes poetic about Crystal and how apparently she’s fireproof, although Darcy may be misunderstanding that part. For Crystal’s sake she kind of hopes she’s not; that’d be pretty convenient for her. Probably wouldn’t bode well for the furniture--even with _her_ Johnny scorched handprints into half the bed--but that’s a different problem. 

She tries not to think about Bucky, which during the actual sex hadn’t been hard. It’d been the parts between where it was a problem, knotted and nestled in close and thinking about whether or not he was the one who took the backpack, if he’s okay, if HYDRA’s found him, if Steve and Sam and Natasha have found him, if, if, if--

She breathes out. She kisses Johnny’s temple and pets his hair and extolls all his virtues and makes sure he’s hydrated and well-fed and feels appreciated and very, very gently untangles them from each other, and he lets her crash for the night. In the morning she wakes up, they kiss, and they both shower and get dressed and he lets her make him breakfast in the kitchen and feed it to him bite-by-bite while Ben Grimm grumbles behind the newspaper and Reed Richards ignores everyone in favor of his tablet and whatever his other arm is doing stretched out down the hall behind him. Meanwhile, Sue Storm is eyeing him wryly and apparently waiting for him to realize he’s poured coffee in his cereal and creamer in his orange juice. Darcy suspects they’re going to make it all the way through breakfast before he notices that, much less _her_. 

“He gets really into his work, huh,” she says, peering at the man over her glasses and debating if joining Johnny in flicking little bits of hash brown at him would be making herself a little _too_ comfortable. Then again, she spent most of the past three days fucking Johnny stupid, so “comfortable” is really a wide range here. 

“You have no idea,” Sue says ruefully, chin resting in her hand. “We’re still waiting for him to notice I’m pregnant.” 

“But . . . you, like, _reek_ of bred. You’ve gotta already have missed at least one heat,” Darcy says, blinking at her in bemusement. 

“Mmhm,” Sue confirms with a blithe nod. “Ben and I started building the nursery in the spare room two weeks ago and Reed’s walked by it a good thirty times since and not noticed a thing.” 

“The man ain’t exactly known for his observational skills,” Ben says, eyeing Reed, who’s typing rapidly on his tablet and doesn’t appear to be hearing a damn thing any of them say. It’s kind of impressive, actually; even Tony usually notices people who are talking about him by _name_ , if nothing else. “Want me to just drop him off the building, Susie?” 

“You’re sweet, Ben,” Sue says, smiling at him appreciatively. “It’s fine, I’ve got a bet running with Crystal that when he finally notices he’ll assume it’s Johnny and try to lecture him about responsibility. I’m saving a confetti cannon for it and everything.” 

“You are _so_ cool,” Darcy says, more than a little wooed. 

“I try,” Sue replies modestly. Darcy decides to flick the hash brown bits, which Reed completely fails to notice landing in his hair, and Johnny buries his giggles in her shoulder. It’s a really nice post-heat morning, and she leaves smelling like hothouse flowers and with Johnny smelling like spice and heat and without even the trace of a hangover. 

She makes it a block before she starts feeling like she’s going to puke and calls Ian, hoping he’s on his lunch break or at least between classes. It’s a five-hour time difference, so at least she knows he’ll be _awake_ , if nothing else; Ian never sleeps in past noon. 

Well okay, once or twice immediately post large-scale disasters, but she’s pretty sure Sue or Ben would’ve mentioned if anything terrible had happened to London and/or the world while they were rutting. Probably. Almost definitely. 

“Morning, Darcy,” Ian says. Thank God for Tony Stark paying the phone bill. 

“Oh thank fuck, you’re alive,” Darcy says in relief, raking a hand over her face. “Are you busy?” 

“Um--that depends, should I _not_ be alive?” Ian asks, sounding a little alarmed. 

“No, you’re probably good,” Darcy says, then stops and chews on her lip uncertainly for a moment. “Well. I mean, as far as I _know_ , anyway, I was rutting the Human Torch the past few days so I’m a liiiittle behind if there’s been another alien invasion or something.” 

“I’m just going to turn the news on for a moment, then,” Ian says with some dread, and Darcy hears the TV go on the background. She doesn’t blame him for checking, considering what their lives are like. Actually now she kind of wants to check too, to be honest. “What’s wrong?” 

“Uh, besides maybe being attacked by aliens without noticing?” Darcy hedges, gut twisting uncomfortably again. 

“Um--yes. Besides that,” Ian replies awkwardly. “Although if there’s been an invasion I don’t think it was much of one, the news is talking about the Premier League.” 

“Maybe wait ‘til they’re done with sports, just to be sure,” Darcy says, chewing on her lip again. It _is_ the Premier League. 

“What’s _wrong_ , alpha?” Ian repeats, stressing it more this time. She grimaces and stops on the sidewalk like a stupid fucking tourist and nearly gets knocked over, and then breathes out and forces herself to start walking again. 

“It’s stupid,” she says. “It’s really, really stupid. And kind of heartbreaking. Or--really heartbreaking. _So_ heartbreaking, like the kind that is not even fucking _fair_ to fucking _anyone_ heartbreaking--” 

“Darcy,” Ian says, and she lets out all her breath again, clutching the phone tight. 

“I met an omega,” she says. “I mean, not like--there was an omega, I met him, I didn’t _meet him_. And he needed a heat partner, like, super last-minute and then needed to rush out again right after he came out of it and it was just . . . shit, I got _so_ hungover even with other omegas in the tower, and I know he didn’t have any alphas he could trust to be around and--and fuck, I just rutted _Johnny fucking Storm_ and I feel like . . . oh my god, am I even coherent right now, is this making literally any sense at all?” 

“Sort of,” Ian says, his voice going softer. “Are you okay?” 

“The problem is _him_ being okay!” Darcy groans, covering her face with her free hand. “It’s been two months and I have no idea what happened to him and one of the hottest omegas on the _planet_ just asked me to be his heat partner while his girlfriend was _literally on the moon_ , I’m not even joking, that is actually where she is even as we _speak_ \--” 

“And?” Ian asks. 

“And I feel like I cheated on a guy who didn’t even feel safe enough to tell me his real name,” Darcy mutters, stopping in her tracks again and ignoring the people around her. She doesn’t care. 

"Darcy? Is . . . is this, uh, a bonding thing?” Ian asks slowly. “Did you bite him?"

“He asked me to!” Darcy protests, gesturing sharply in embarrassment. Of course Ian'd guess. She really did not ever expect him to know her this well but--well, of course he does. Of course. “And it’s not like we’re gonna keep it _up_ , the bite was probably gone, like, by that _afternoon_.” 

“That’s . . . bond-bites never clear up that quick,” Ian says doubtfully. Which--well, yes, obviously, Darcy knows that, she’s not an _idiot_. But Bucky is a super-soldier, and _super_ does not want bonded, and . . . 

Bucky probably wanted bonded, at least the way Steve tells it. And he asked her to bite him. And left too soon. And . . . 

Fuck. She doesn’t _know_ what Bucky wants, except for not to hurt people. She’s not even sure he wants to stay away from Steve--he might just be scared or upset or worried or any _fucking_ thing and she has no way to know. She’s never going to know. 

But her stupid, rutbrained hindbrain feels like she’s supposed to. 

“There were these other alphas creeping on him when I got there. Like, _really_ creeping, real bad vibes,” she mutters, tightening her grip on the phone. It’s not anything damning, she can get away with it. “And--he was a big guy, you know? But I don’t think he even knew he could get away from them, the way he was acting. Like, I had to yell at them before he even reacted, and even then I practically had to lead him away by the hand? It was so bad I thought he was in drop at first.” 

“And you bonded him,” Ian says. There's no judgement in his tone, but Darcy winced anyway.

“Look, I know how it sounds but there is not a decent alpha on _earth_ who would not have given that man a bond-bite if he asked them for it, okay?” Darcy says, shoulders hunching uncomfortably. She shouldn’t feel guilty--she _doesn’t_ feel guilty. Bucky’s an adult and a person in desperate need of personhood; giving him what he wanted is not even close to something to feel guilty about. 

Even if he was upset and unhappy and probably hadn’t been thinking about the heat-bond hangover at the time and she maybe should’ve taken his compromised state of mind into account. But . . . what had she been supposed to do? She hadn’t actually _known_ he’d been planning to bolt first thing and what, she’d been going to treat him like he didn’t know what he wanted? Like she knew _better_? 

Yeah, no, not fucking likely. 

So maybe it hadn’t been the smartest idea for either of them, but Bucky’s suffered a lot worse than a heat-bond hangover in his time and she doesn’t have room to complain about getting a little screwed over by him doing his damnedest to stay free and fucking _human_. She’d been the one to have omegas who trusted her around to soften the blow; Bucky’d been alone this whole time, doing God knew what God knew where and--and--

She just wants to know he’s _okay_ , dammit. 

Except he doesn’t want her to know. 

“Are you okay with that?” Ian asks finally. 

“Not really my choice, is it,” Darcy mutters, rubbing at her face in frustration. “It’s not--he wanted to leave, and he wasn’t _wrong_ to. Like--I know why he needed to. I’m an asshole for letting it bother me.” 

“Yeah, I . . . I don’t think that’s true,” Ian replies slowly. “You’re not taking it out on him, you can feel however you feel about it.” 

“He needs me,” Darcy says automatically, then groans at herself and her fucking useless hindbrain. “No, he doesn’t need me. I just _feel_ like he does. But it’s been two months, I’m being a giant freaking _creep_ about it.” 

“Weren’t, um, the creeps those first alphas?” Ian asks uncertainly. “Because it sounds like you helped him out when he needed it and your instincts are just a little frustrated because you’re not sure what happened to him after.” 

“I mean--yeah, but _no_ ,” Darcy says, frustrated. “I should be over it. I should’ve been able to _really_ help him!” 

“You _definitely_ helped him,” Ian says. “He was in a bad situation and you helped him get out, and you helped him through his heat how he wanted. Like . . . I mean, there’s nothing an alpha can do that helps like doing what we _ask_ for. The other stuff’s, uh--the protective stuff, and the knotting, and all the . . . I mean, that stuff’s all important, but doing that’s the _most_ important. You know that, right?” 

“I really wish I did,” Darcy says, pushing up her glasses to rub at her eyes. 

“Well, it is,” Ian tells her. 

She should believe him, she knows. _He’d_ know, after all. 

It’s just hard to, when she feels like this about it. 

Talking to Ian helps, and doesn’t help. Things can’t really help if you don’t let them, Darcy admits to herself, and she still feels guilty and stupid and like she’s done something wrong, even though she’d felt fine this morning and . . . well, _most_ of Johnny’s heat she’d felt fine for, anyway.

Most of it. 

She goes back to the tower, refusing to think about the fact it snowed while she was in the Baxter Building and what Bucky did while it was, because _fuck_ her instincts, he _is_ a master assassin who mostly survived World War II and growing up during the Great Depression, the man knows enough to find someplace bearably warm to crash. Hell, if all else fails he’s still got the casualty blanket from her first aid kit, he’d just need to find someplace out of the way to curl up under the thing and he’d be fine. He’s got her hat and scarf and gloves, too, and hey, if he actually found the second backpack he’s got _two_ casualty blankets, even. 

She really feels like throwing up. 

Tony and Rhodey’s heat is over, and Steve and Sam and Natasha are back and looking much more tired and much less happy than they were after Steve’s heat. The team has dinner together and Darcy makes the mistake of sitting in on it and listening to Steve treat the story of their latest fruitless search for the Winter Soldier like the world’s saddest mission report. It really does not help with the nauseous feeling. Mercifully, Tony moves the conversation along to inappropriate-but-adoring comments about Pepper’s stamina and everyone else’s groaning drowns out most of the depression and at least a little of the guilt. 

Darcy should not feel guilty. 

Darcy feels _so guilty_. 

Business as usual resumes at the tower, this time without Darcy even needing to get over a hangover. Johnny texts her a couple party invites and Crystal sends her a thank-you bouquet of weird space flowers that Tony and Jane immediately declare they have to do something inadvisable with _Science_ to keep alive, although Darcy’s pretty sure the weird little pebbles Thor drops into the bottom of their vase with a blithe expression do that more than anything else. The way said pebbles glow in moonlight is a pretty big tip-off, for starters. 

The flowers are pretty cool-looking either way, even if it’s weird to get flowers from another alpha. Maybe that’s just the kind of thing apparently-not-human people who go have arguments with their sister on the moon are into, though. 

So. 

Business as usual. Flowers from a maybe-alien alpha, Pepper running to meetings and Tony avoiding them, Natasha and Clint communicating more in sign than speech, Tony and Jane and Bruce arguing over _Science_ while Erik tinkers with something dangerous and Rhodey tries to keep him from killing anyone while they’re distracted. Sam drops by the local VA a few times, Natasha spends a lot of time with decrepit-looking paper files written in Russian, and they have a truly epic thunderstorm that gets Thor so excited that he blows out a few windows. 

Darcy does her work and e-mails Ian and her friends from her Culver days and does some more work and _does not_ think about Bucky Barnes. 

And Steve sits around looking heartbroken but resigned in quiet, out of the way corners. 

He smells like sad apple pie. Darcy didn’t even know apple pie _could_ smell sad, but apparently if it’s Steve Rogers, yes, _yes it can_. 

“Sorry,” she says helplessly the third or tenth time she’s instinctively tried to feed him something or wrap a blanket around him. He smiles at her, but it’s really not a smile. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m just tired this time, I think.” 

“Sorry,” Darcy says again, barely restraining herself from petting his hair. Then she properly registers what he means--what she’s smelling right now. 

Steve’s heat is coming up. 

Her heart catches in her throat and she thinks of Bucky vulnerable and emotional and _suggestible_ and maybe still not someplace safe, assuming there’s any place that _could_ be safe for him. Did he find a clinic without cameras? A heat partner he can trust? A heat partner he can at least trust not to drag him back to HYDRA, if nothing else? 

Is he going to come back _here_? 

Does he even understand he could? 

Darcy cleans her room; scrubs the bathtub and shower and bathroom floor, vacuums the carpet, folds or hangs all the clothes, straightens all the extremely sturdy new furniture Tony’d bought her without seeming to notice the sudden spike in her Avengers expense account--look, heat with a super-soldier _counts_ as a work-related expense, okay?--and then stares around her room and feels like an idiot. 

And then makes sure there are truffles in the fridge, because yes, she is _such_ an idiot. 

Sam and Natasha disappear, Steve starts smelling more and more strongly of pre-heat, and Bucky Barnes does not show up on the doorstep, or across the street, or back in that same alley, or even in Darcy’s bed in the middle of the night, which is actually the one she’d been expecting, when she’d let herself expect. 

She hadn’t let herself expect very much, mind. She’s not a _complete_ masochist. 

And then eighty-nine days on the dot from the day she’d tracked Bucky down to that alley, the elevator door opens in the middle of her evening Cake Boss marathon. 

“Um,” Steve says. Darcy stares at him. He smells like the cusp of heat, warm and gorgeous like apple pie and cinnamon ice cream, and is _killingly_ beautiful. 

“Nrgh?” she manages in panicked almost-coherence, resisting the impulse to throw the Cheetos bag in her lap behind the sofa and yank Jane’s mom’s afghan over her terrible hair and ratty-ass pajama pants--she swears she’d been planning to take a shower and put on sexy underwear tomorrow, okay, just on the off chance, but this is _cozy time_ , no alpha should be expected to be all handsomed up during _cozy time_. 

“Sorry,” Steve says, looking briefly embarrassed. “Um . . . I was wondering if I could ask you a favor?” 

_“Nrgh,”_ Darcy agrees with emphatic incoherence, still staring at him like an idiot. Jesus, and she’d thought he smelled good _last_ time. 

“It’s just, Sam and Natasha went to check out a lead on Bucky quick while I was nesting, but they still aren’t back yet . . .” Steve trails off meaningfully, doing the _exact fucking same_ under the lashes look he probably learned _from_ Bucky. Darcy chokes on literally nothing, not even like breathing wrong or anything, she has absolutely no excuse. 

Steve gives her a little smile, flushing _unfairly_ prettily, and Darcy throws the Cheetos behind the couch after all. Fuck the Cheetos. Cheetos are _shit_. 

“Um,” she manages awkwardly, voice only a couple octaves higher than it should be. “Do you mean, uh, like . . . what?” 

“Well, we took care of that thing with the Fantastic Four last week--” _what_ thing, Darcy wonders in vague hysteria, most higher thought processes destroyed by Steve’s disgustingly long eyelashes and the sweetly hopeful way he’s lingering in the doorway and his fucking _American Pie pheromones_ \--“and Johnny Storm said to tell you hi. And said some . . . uh, other things.” 

“Oh my god,” Darcy says faintly, not sure if she’s mortified, flattered, or _horrified_. She can’t do this. She absolutely cannot do this. Steve Rogers, Captain _fucking_ America, cannot be coming to her to ask if--to ask her--he _cannot_ be. 

Two heats ago this would’ve been amazing; right now, it makes her feel like the worst scum on the damn planet. Possibly _worse_ than those HYDRA fucks who’d laid hands on Bucky, because at least they hadn’t made Steve trust them--wait, no, actually that’s a terrible analogy, they’d totally done that, that’d been like their whole entire schtick. 

So actually she’s just exactly _as_ bad as the crazy Nazi infiltrators who’d destroyed everything he died for and also his best friend in the process. 

Yes. Yes, that’s . . . that’s not remotely comforting at all. Good to know. Great. 

Oh god. 

“I was just wondering--” Steve starts shyly, and then his phone rings and Darcy genuinely almost cries in relief. And because the universe does have _some_ mercy, it’s Natasha informing Steve that they’re back in New York and will be at the tower in an hour. 

Thank fuck, Darcy thinks dazedly, feeling like she might throw up. Thank _fuck_. 

“Sorry about that,” Steve says, flashing her a smile. “Thanks anyway.”

Darcy croaks out some manner of sane-person response and he leaves. The apple pie and cinnamon ice cream smell does not leave with him, lingering sweet and strong in the air. 

She waits ‘til the elevator’s long gone, then buries her face in the nearest throw pillow and _screams_. 

The next couple days are awful, both because Bucky does not show up and because Steve’s pheromones continue to linger in the hall and Darcy can't bring herself to use the scent-scrubbers. The tower’s on heat protocol, but that doesn’t do much good when Steve was literally _on their floor_ , and unlike Jane, Darcy does not have Thor cuddling up to her at night smelling like mead and metal and wait, shit, oh-- _fuck her life_. 

“This is the _worst_ ,” Darcy swears to herself as she double-checks everything Erik’s put together according to the list Jane slipped under the door this morning. The whole floor smells like a super-soldier war hero and alien god-prince want to be simultaneously fucked through the bed and filled up with pups, and also if someone tries to destroy the world that’s their fearless leader and second-heaviest heavy hitter out for the count and they might be a little screwed. Or a _lot_. 

Also, god forbid someone have to drag Natasha or Sam out of Steve’s den right now, because she is _pretty_ sure that would end in blood and tears and possibly a Widow’s Bite to the face. 

Also-also, she’s officially woken up hard and horny three days in a row and it is very, very hard not to spend her morning jerk-off thinking about Steve and Thor maybe helping each other out a little, because seriously, she watched way, _way_ too many of those softcore videos as a kid. Besides, she can’t really get off to Jane and putting herself in the scenario just feels weird and invasive, so . . . 

Yeah, no, keep making excuses, hindbrain, she thinks, eyeing the ceiling morosely. Because that is _definitely_ going to work out for her long-term. 

Definitely not.

Steve has another seven day heat, not counting the day he spends nesting and the day Sam and Natasha take for fluffy aftercare and presumably their own sanity. Thor clocks in at the usual six, also not counting nesting and aftercare. 

Darcy _suffers_. 

“That was terrible,” she says. Clint hums back sympathetically from his seat on the other side of the breakfast bar, more absorbed in doing something questionable to an arrowhead with a very tiny screwdriver, or maybe a paperclip. It’s Clint; probably best to let the mystery stay a mystery. “Really, really terrible.” 

“Cheer up, Lewis, we’re going on an ill-advised trip to Australia today,” Clint says, lifting the arrowhead overhead to inspect it in better light. Darcy’s starting to suspect the screwdriver/paper clip might actually just be a very shiny cocktail pick. “Apparently Barnes popped up on a very secret security camera somewhere in Perth last night. Which, interestingly enough, is almost _exactly_ the furthest place from New York City a human being can get without hanging out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Funny, huh?” 

“Uh, no?” Darcy says, blinking stupidly. That is probably the least funny thing she has ever heard in her life, in fact. She doesn’t even want to know how Steve looked when they made that connection. 

“Yeah, not so much,” Clint agrees, tweaking the arrowhead with his thumb. Flat magnetic clamps spring out and the whole thing sparks like something electric. Darcy stares at it. 

She wonders what the heat partners are like in Perth. 

“Why are you going?” she asks, although even as she does she realizes it’s got to be because of Natash--

“I know what it’s like chasing a brother who won’t come in from the cold,” Clint says, expression perfectly neutral as he retracts the clamps and sets the arrowhead aside, picking up the next one in line. “And I know what it does to you when they won’t, so . . .” 

“So you’re supposed to be sympathetic,” Darcy says, voice coming out flat. 

“Basically.” Clint glances up at her. “‘Course, in an _ideal_ world, I get to be sympathetic to Barnes over how much mind control sucks.” 

“Oh.” Darcy deflates. “Yeah, that would . . . that would be better.” 

“Just a bit,” Clint agrees. He finishes up with the arrowheads, packs up, and leaves with Steve and Sam and Natasha an hour later. Rhodey’s already back on base and Pepper’s in Shanghai, so Tony immediately starts to bitch and sulk at the lack of convenient people around when he’s in the mood for them and starts hoarding Jane and Bruce and Erik in the lab. Darcy sneaks Pop-Tarts to Butterfingers to deliver, and otherwise stays out of the way.

She asks J.A.R.V.I.S. to show her Perth on a map, and he does, along with a fuckton of pictures and video. She doesn’t ask him for the footage of Bucky. 

Thinks about it, but doesn’t. 

She wonders if J.A.R.V.I.S. just . . . doesn’t remember. If “remember” is the right word to use, anyway. But he must’ve seen the footage, right? And he _definitely_ saw Bucky, talked about him to her, called him _your lovely young omega_ like Darcy actually had a claim on him, like Bucky actually _wanted_ someone to claim him. But J.A.R.V.I.S. doesn’t record people who are giving off heat or rut pheromones when the tower is running on heat protocol, so . . . is that like forgetting, for him? 

She doesn’t even know why she’s thinking about this. She never would’ve before. 

Yeah, no. She knows exactly why she’s thinking about this. 

“The Man of Iron banished me from his forge,” Thor says as he comes onto the floor, looking disgruntled. “Apparently because I do not know his Midgard-specific vocabulary I would be entirely useless in his dissection of the machines that my Jane has gifted him from Asgard.” 

“Cake Boss?” Darcy suggests hopefully, holding up the remote; Thor raises an eyebrow at her. 

“I would prefer _cake_ , myself,” he says. “Carlo’s Bakery is located in Hoboken, correct?” 

“Thor, you’re my favorite,” Darcy says, immediately scrambling to turn the TV off. Tony and the advancement of humankind’s loss is her gain, okay, and she is not remotely ashamed of that. 

Also, she totally knows what machines Thor is talking about and is dearly looking forward to Tony figuring out they’re all cheapo kids’ toys Jane got at the Asgardian version of a flea market. Jane was probably _dying_ trying not to laugh when she gave them to him. 

They hop in the elevator and head downstairs, Thor still dubious about the vocabulary issue, and Darcy gives him a consoling pat on the shoulder and promises him a whole _mess_ of cannoli, which pacifies him pretty well. Never let it be said the hindbrain doesn’t have at least a couple good ideas about how to soothe ruffled omegas. 

They could leave from the penthouse--it’s usually easier, especially for longer flights--but that has a way of getting noticed and lately Thor’s gotten in the habit of taking a cab out of the city before taking off. Darcy does not blame him, on account of all the times Twitter has gotten him mobbed; he handles it pretty well but apparently people are a lot more respectful about the mobbing on Asgard and also aren’t fucking crazy enough to feel entitled to grope any pretty omega they come across, _even the alien god-prince_. Like . . . holy shit, Darcy had not even known how to process that the first time it’d happened. 

Well, she’d tased the offending alpha, but that’d honestly been at least partially for their own sake. The sky’d been rumbling really, _really_ ominously and Thor had looked about the same way it sounded.

Okay, so it’d been to make sure no one tried to stick Thor with a murder rap. But all the same. 

So basically, there are various definitions of the word “easier”, and now they take taxis. Gotta do something with the fancy Avengers expense accounts, really. Darcy, for one, is going to put _so much_ cake on hers today. 

“They do delivery for just pastry, right?” Darcy asks speculatively as they step out onto the street, eyeing Thor’s arms. They’re gonna be full of her on the way back, won’t be much room for extra pastry. “Pretty sure they’ll do delivery for just pastries, we’re gonna be buyin’ enough. Although if we have to order a custom cake to get said delivery, well, that’s between God and Tony Stark’s credit card bill, isn’t it.” 

“Most certainly, my friend,” Thor says, flashing her an amused smile. Darcy grins back, and then something catches her eye just past his shoulder, and she stares. Thor frowns. “Darcy?” 

“Uh,” Darcy manages, swallowing hard. She’s imagining things, right? She is definitely, definitely--

No. No, that is definitely Bucky Barnes staring at her from the opposite side of the street with a panicked, guilty look. He’s clean-shaven and wearing a thick hooded jacket and her hat and gloves and the second backpack, and that would make her feel actually pretty good about life and the universe past the way it cuts into her heart, except again, he looks fucking _terrified_. 

“Thor,” she says distantly, not quite feeling in her skin even as something in her chest that’s been clenched up in terror for the past three months finally eases. And then immediately gets way, _way_ worse, because yeah, of fucking course it does. “I am about to do something super-inadvisable, and no matter what happens, if absolutely anybody tries to lay their hands on that omega I need you to bring down the hammer, okay?” 

“Which omega?” Thor asks, glancing back. Bucky tenses, and the light changes with either terrible or merciful timing. Darcy rushes across the street even though that’s probably the stupidest thing she could do, except Bucky doesn’t bolt. 

That is . . . actually even unlikelier than him showing up to begin with, she can’t help feeling. 

She has absolutely no idea what to say to him. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, that does not turn out to be a problem. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he hisses at her as soon as she hits the sidewalk, glancing around anxiously and not very subtle covert ops super-soldier at all. Darcy’s not sure if he’s talking about coming back to the tower or getting spotted in Perth, or--wait. Wait, Steve thinks Bucky is in Australia. Steve thinks Bucky’s in Australia reliably enough that _four_ Avengers went literally to the opposite side of the _planet_ after him. So does that mean he was in Australia last night and then immediately flew out here? For _what_? 

. . . and isn’t it at least a full day to fly to Perth from New York, if not way, way more? J.A.R.V.I.S. sure made it sound that way when he was explaining the quinjet’s flight path. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, because none of the rest of that crap actually matters when he’s looking at her like that. Bucky freezes up and stares at her in disbelief, and that’s not an answer and her hindbrain is _screaming_ at her to get her hands on him, make him smell like her, like _hers_ , tell everyone else to fuck _right_ off and--

“I threw up,” he says. Darcy blinks. 

“I--what?” she manages. Super-soldiers can _do_ that? Bucky’s mouth thins, his shoulders hunching, and he takes a heart-stopping step backwards. Darcy’s hindbrain wants her to hurl herself after him like nothing else, and she only barely manages not to. 

“The pills, I took--I threw up,” he says stutteringly. “They didn’t work. I don’t--I can’t go to a clinic. But they didn’t work.” 

“What?” Darcy asks, a lot more alarmed this time and just barely keeping herself from moving towards him. Pills. He took pills that didn’t work. Didn’t work _how_? “What pills, B--baby? What’d you take?” 

“It said it’d help,” Bucky says, staring at the ground. “It said it’d fix it, it’d be . . . it said it’d fix it but I took them and it didn’t work. My metabolism--I _took_ extra, I don’t know what I did _wrong_.” 

“It’s okay,” Darcy promises immediately, fingers twitching to reach out. She wants to hold his hands, cup his face, do-- _something_. Any something. Her alpha instincts are fucking _vibrating_ with it. “It’s all right, omega, we’ll fix it. Just tell me what’s wrong, okay? 

“I didn’t think I could,” Bucky says, hunching in even smaller on himself and making Darcy’s protective pheromones spike. “I swear, I wasn’t--I didn’t think I could. And I took the pills but they didn’t _work_ and I can’t go to a clinic and I--and I _can’t_ \--” 

“Come _here_ ,” Darcy blurts without even meaning to, can’t stop herself from saying when he looks and smells like _that_ , fear and despair and a painfully familiar vanilla soap, and cringes when she hears the alpha come out in her own voice. Bucky cringes too, except he also darts in and buries his face against the crook of her neck and shakes against her, and he doesn’t flinch when her arms snap up around him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely, sounding just short of outright panic, and Darcy hates the part of herself that feels more settled and _better_ just having him against her. “I _swear_ I thought I couldn’t. And I tried to--fix it. I didn’t know where else . . . I didn’t know anyplace else that _could_ and wouldn’t . . . and wouldn’t . . .” 

“It’s okay, sweetheart, I got you,” Darcy soothes in a low rumble, tightening her grip on him and pressing up on her toes, trying to let him get in as close against her as he’s trying to. She wishes that meant more. “Take a deep breath, okay? Tell me what you were trying to fix and we’ll figure it out.” 

“I can’t . . . I can’t have pups,” Bucky whispers against her collarbone, voice audibly pained and his shoulders locked up and trembling. 

Darcy doesn’t understand, for a second--she already knows that, he’d told her that last time, what’s he trying to--

“They’ll _take_ them,” he rasps, and ice pours down her spine.


	8. after the war

Darcy hyperventilates a little, and Bucky hyperventilates a _lot_. The hindbrain kicks in just enough to keep her from having an outright panic attack--alphas have been shrugging off terror and trauma and maiming injuries for the sake of protecting omegas for all of human history, okay, this is one of those few cases where the biology _is_ on her side--and she rumbles and croons and strokes the back of his neck, but the damage from those first moments of panic is already done. 

“Darcy,” Thor says carefully from the curb, and Darcy gives him a helpless look, tightening her grip on Bucky, who’s already tensing and shrinking in on himself again. 

And probably going for a knife, the way his one arm’s crept down. 

Fuck. 

“Baby,” she says, tightening her grip again and tightening the hand on the back of Bucky’s neck. His arm goes limp against his side, defeated, and all the air seems to go out of him. Darcy swallows. “It’s okay, baby, that’s Thor. He’s my friend. Thor, this is--Jamie.” 

“That’s not my name,” Bucky says hoarsely, breathing only barely under control and eyes fixed on the ground. 

“May I ask what is?” Thor asks, gentling his voice. 

“Thacket,” Bucky replies, own voice dull, and Darcy frowns. She’d assumed he was admitting his real identity for a moment there, but . . . 

“Thacket, yeah, you said that last time,” she agrees carefully. 

“No,” Bucky mutters, shaking his head, and then enunciates: _“The asset.”_

“Right,” Darcy says. Her head doesn’t feel quite right, distant and disconnected, but that’s probably for the best because if she let herself absorb this properly just now her pheromones would go fucking _batshit_ and Bucky would be doing something way worse than hyperventilating. And that’s--and that’s--

That can’t be good for a pregnant omega. 

_Fuck_ , Darcy thinks with a faint trace of hysteria, digging her nails into the back of Bucky’s neck through the hood. He goes almost boneless under the contact, but there’s a tremble in his spine. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought I couldn’t get--I _swear_ I thought--” 

“It’s okay, baby, I believe you,” Darcy hushes him in a low rumble, petting the back of his neck again. Bucky makes a hurt noise and hunches his shoulders tight, and she looks anxiously over to Thor, who’s watching in concern. “I--look, come on, come inside with us, okay, we can help. That’s why you came, right, you want us to help?” 

“Please, alpha,” Bucky rasps, his eyes fixed on the ground. 

“Okay, baby,” Darcy says, tugging him towards the street. His legs buckle and he stumbles on the curb, and Thor immediately steps in and scoops him up bridal-style. Darcy has a panicked second expecting Bucky to try and put a knife in him or his metal arm _through_ him, but instead Bucky just makes another hurt noise and then lets out a little keen--the most omega sound that Darcy has maybe ever _heard_ , and one she’s more used to hearing when the omega’s burning up with heat and begging for her to come make it better. 

Except worse, because Bucky makes it so quietly that it sounds like he has zero expectation of anyone answering it. 

“Shhhh, no, it’s okay,” Darcy soothes, grabbing his arm and breathing really carefully before she can start freaking out again. Bucky’s already breathing too quick. “It’s all right, Jamie, Thor’s my friend. He just wants to help.” 

“I’m not injured,” Bucky grits out without looking at either of them, his arm tense under her hand. 

“My apologies, but you do not move as a man uninjured. Falling when gravid is dangerous,” Thor says carefully, and Bucky presses his lips into a thin line and refuses to look at him. 

“It’s okay, sweetie, we just want to help,” Darcy says again, tone as low and soothing as she can make it without letting her alpha voice get involved. “Just let us get you inside, okay? I know you can let us help you.” 

“Mm.” Bucky’s lips whiten and he still won’t look up. It’s not encouraging. 

He’s not stabbing Thor and running either, though, so that’s . . . something. 

“It’s okay,” Darcy repeats, squeezing his arm. “I just want to give you what you want, yeah? I mean, I did okay at that before, right? Like, that went all right, you seemed to like it.” 

“I felt bad after,” Bucky says, still not looking at her. Darcy’s heart sinks and her hindbrain _cringes_. 

“Me too, omega,” she manages, giving his arm another squeeze. “I was--I got really worried about you. Were you okay?” 

“. . . yes, alpha,” Bucky says quietly. 

For a master covert-ops assassin, he’s a really awful liar. 

Darcy takes a breath. Lets it out. Drops her hand from Bucky’s arm and--

Bucky whines, very quietly, and Darcy wants to throw up and also drag him back to her den and put him in her closet and never ever _ever_ let anyone else touch him. 

“Sorry,” she says, lifting both arms this time and trying to figure out if she can reach high enough to hug him like this, maybe let him get a little of her pheromones on--

Bucky practically lunges out of Thor’s arms to latch onto her and if Thor were slightly less ridiculous in the super-muscles department he’d probably have knocked her right over and taken himself with her. As it is she still stumbles and then Bucky _lifts her right off the sidewalk_. Darcy squeaks in surprise and Thor and Bucky both adjust their grips and balance in ridiculously improbable fashion and then the next thing she knows she’s tumbling into Bucky’s lap in an awkward pile. 

Well, if the passerby hadn’t already noticed there was an Avenger on the street, it’s definitely obvious now. Nobody else would’ve been able to pull off that move. 

“Little warning next time, guys?” Darcy suggests wryly, although Bucky’s pheromones finally smell less distressed so she can’t really complain. He squirms uncomfortably in Thor’s arms, pushing her hips back so she won’t be sitting on his stomach, and she winces and reorients herself more carefully. That . . . probably is not comfortable for him right now, no. “Sorry.” 

“My apologies, Darcy,” Thor says sincerely, then glances at the surrounding pedestrians, who even fueled on New Yorker apathy are having trouble restraining themselves from staring. Bucky tucks his face into Darcy’s neck to better hide, or maybe just to scent her. She’s got no way to know which, under the circumstances. “Perhaps we’d best move on.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna support that idea,” Darcy agrees, already certain this is ending up in the back pages of a tabloid with a weird headline and really hoping that no one’s phone got a clear shot of Bucky’s face. Well, he’s wearing gloves and the hat and hood are both up, so chances are at least not _completely_ terrible. Thor checks for traffic and then steps into the street. Bucky tenses, tightening his grip on Darcy, and Thor gives him one of his big-cat purrs. 

“I assure you, Asset, the Avengers abide by the rules of hospitality,” he says. “No harm will come to you inside our tower.” Bucky doesn’t acknowledge him, his pheromones still tinged with that last little bit of distress, and Darcy pets his hair and glances at Thor in concern. He looks troubled, but not bothered, and they head into the tower. 

“J.A.R.V.I.S.?” Darcy asks as soon as they’ve made it through the front door and into the lobby, trying very hard to project calm and confidence for Bucky when mostly what she feels is panicked and ridiculous and uncomfortably positioned. “Like, sorry to interrupt the science convention but can you ask Tony and Bruce to meet us? Just . . . wherever’s good for them, it doesn’t matter. Kind of a mini-emergency.” 

“Of course, Miss Lewis. Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner can be found in Mr. Stark’s fabrication lab,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says as the elevator doors open for them. Bucky flinches at the word “lab” and Darcy hates herself a little. Or a lot. She really did not think that one through at _all_. 

She really, really wishes she had. 

The elevator starts moving. Darcy slips down off Bucky’s lap and nearly falls over, although that’s mostly because he keeps his arms around her neck and again, they would probably _all_ knock over if Thor weren’t built like an alien Mack truck. Thor lets Bucky down carefully and Darcy resists the irrational urge to touch his stomach. He obviously doesn’t want the contact there, for one thing, and even if he didn’t care about that she doubts he’d want the reminder either. He looks sick, and since obviously it’s not literal sickness . . . yeah. 

Well. Maybe it is, actually. Morning sickness is a thing, right? 

The elevator stops, J.A.R.V.I.S. announces them, and they step out into the fabrication lab. Tony looks exhausted and annoyed and is wearing grease-stained jeans and an impression of the couch upholstery on his cheek; Bruce is sitting in a chair, looking very deliberately calm. She’s not sure if J.A.R.V.I.S. has ID’ed Bucky and warned them or if that’s just because he’s Bruce. Like . . . it _is_ Bruce. 

She really hopes it wasn’t actually a warning. 

“So someone owes us a mini-emergency, Lewis?” Tony asks, gesturing impatiently. “Semi-emergency? Emergency-emergency?” 

“Uh. Hey,” Darcy says, wincing. “A little?” 

“You just recruited two of the finest scientific minds on the _planet_ for a _little_ emergency?” Tony asks, expression dubious. 

“. . . yeah, uh, not at all,” Darcy mutters, grimacing, and grabs a stool to pull over for Bucky. She doesn’t want him stumbling again. She fusses him into it and it soothes her hindbrain enough to help her calm down, and hopefully does the same for Bucky, but . . . yeah, no, she’s not really banking on that. “Really not a little emergency.” 

“What’s the problem?” Bruce asks, frowning faintly, which is as always super fucking terrifying. Darcy represses the instinctive flinch, then steels herself. And, because she’d told herself she would follow Bucky’s lead no matter where it led--

“This is the asset,” she says, gesturing to Bucky, who tenses at the attention. Bruce frowns _(terrifyingly!)_ in confusion; Tony takes one look at his face and his eyebrows shoot straight up. Okay, so J.A.R.V.I.S. didn’t ID them outright, apparently. She really hopes Tony keeps his mouth--well, not _shut_ , she’s not an idiot, but at least . . . muffled. A little. “He’s--we’re having a problem. That we need fixed.” 

“A problem. That needs fixed,” Tony repeats, eyeing her dubiously. 

“He’s pregnant,” Darcy says quickly, because God knows what _Tony’d_ say given the room to talk in. She tries not to notice Bucky’s cringe. “He tried to have a medication abortion, but he has an accelerated metabolism and it didn’t take. He just ended up throwing up the pills.” 

“Riiiiight,” Tony says, still eyeing her. “All right, sure, of course I get woken up in the middle of the--” 

“--day--” Bruce interjects, and Tony makes an irritated noise and waves him off. Darcy seems to recall him kicking Thor out of the lab less than an hour ago so he could fuck with Asgardian kids’ toys, but whatever. 

“--middle of the _whatever_ for superhuman abortion pills, because _that’s_ definitely my area of expertise all right--” 

“When was your last heat?” Bruce asks Bucky calmly, sitting down across from him as Tony continues ranting in the background. Bucky grimaces and retreats into his coat as much as he can. 

“Ninety-four days ago. With, uh, Darcy Lewis,” he mutters, staring at his knees. 

“And when did you try to abort?” Bruce asks. 

“Eight days ago, when my heat didn’t come and I realized I’d missed my last cycle,” Bucky says, still staring at his knees. “I didn’t--remember. Before.” 

“Do you remember when your last cycle was before the heat?” Bruce asks carefully, and Bucky lets out an ugly, humorless laugh and shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. “Thought I was infertile. They said it was interfering.” 

“Interfering?” Bruce frowns, and Darcy’s stomach sinks. She recognizes that tone. That tone is about to make her want to goddamn _hurt_ someone. 

“My heats were too long. Cycle was too heavy, pheromones were too strong. And I kept . . .” Bucky hesitates like he’s not quite sure, shoulders going tight, then breathes out and goes on. “The third time it happened they said ‘we don’t have time to clean the damn thing out every time you fucks can’t keep your knots in your pants’, and then they put me under and then I . . . then I didn’t get pregnant again.” 

This, Darcy thinks, is the literal worst silence of her life. 

“I’ll be right back,” Bruce says after a long, long moment, then gets up and leaves the lab. Tony drops down into his abandoned seat, jaw working tightly. 

“Right,” he says brusquely as soon as the door swings shut behind Bruce, planting his hands on his thighs. “So let’s talk superhuman abortion pills, then.” 

They talk. Tony asks questions and cross-references with J.A.R.V.I.S. and asks _J.A.R.V.I.S._ questions, and J.A.R.V.I.S. asks questions too, and Bucky answers every single one with a dead, blank expression and a completely emotionless scent that makes Darcy want to clamber up a wall and fucking _fight_ somebody. Very specific somebodies who with any luck mostly died in DC but of course Bucky Barnes is not that lucky a human being, Bucky Barnes does not _get_ nice things, so yes, yes, there are definitely people out there who Darcy wants to fight right now. 

She wonders if that empty-eyed look is what he was like in the HYDRA labs that tortured and wiped him in pursuit of “maintenance” or for the “greater good” or-- _whatever_ excuse they gave him, if they even bothered to give him one. To even _have_ one. 

She wonders if he screamed and cursed and spat at them and murdered every single one that got within arm’s reach. 

That is not the kind of thing she can afford to be wondering right now. 

“All right, so what was your cycle like before?” Tony says, fingers tapping impatiently at one of J.A.R.V.I.S.’s projections. 

“I don’t remember,” Bucky replies dully. 

“Right, of course, that would only be _useful_ information,” Tony mutters. “Fine, somebody call Rogers, ask _him_. J.A.R.V.I.S.!” 

Bucky goes dead-white at that, and Darcy grimaces and closes her eyes. Okay, so they’re not pretending they don’t know who Bucky is anymore. Apparently. That’s . . . that sounds like a Tony Stark-quality plan, yeah. 

“Don’t call him,” she says. “They were synced up. Seven-day heats, ninety-day cycle.” 

“Jesus,” Tony says, eyebrows shooting up. “Wait, hold up, how the hell do you even _know_ that?” 

“I really don’t want to talk about that right now, okay?” Darcy replies, still grimacing. “Look, just--can you guys do it?” She can’t stop thinking about how Bucky looked on the sidewalk, the panic and fear she smelled on him there that still lingers on his clothes. About the empty look in his eyes now, and the fucking _stupid_ way she’d reacted when he’d told her he wasn’t fertile, and . . . and too many other things, really. 

“You’re kidding, right? I mean, I’m going to have to learn a whole hell of a lot about reproductive biology I didn’t previously know, but hey this is probably good for me, this is probably information I should have as a proud and definitely-never-breeding breeder,” Tony rattles off distractedly, flipping through another set of projections. “I mean I could just get the ‘regular human’ kind of abortion, of course, but I did get my tubes tied for a reason, after all, that’s--” 

“Tony!” Darcy bites off in frustration, teeth gritting. 

“All right, all right!” he says, putting his hands in the air and giving her an offended look. “Look, we figured out how to make painkillers that work on Cap and Bruce _nearly_ figured out how to sedate the Hulk, and then Pepper and the Extremis thing--” 

_“Tony!”_

“We can do it. Probably,” Tony says, then frowns. “Well, pretty probably. Semi-probably.” 

“Tony, for _god’s sake_ \--” Darcy growls in an alpha-tinged rumble, baring her teeth. 

“Asset,” Thor says quietly, kneeling next to Bucky. Bucky doesn’t look at him. “You seem troubled.”

Bucky doesn’t look, still, and doesn’t say anything. He strips off his gloves and hat and tucks them into the pockets of his jacket, very careful about the process in a way that makes Darcy want to growl even louder. 

He doesn’t look like he did when Tony was asking questions anymore, though, not so lax and blank--he’s tense now, and his eyes keep darting around the room. He’s keeping his line of sight low, though, like he’s trying to avoid any risk of accidental eye contact. Darcy does not imagine elaborate scenarios for why that might be and tells herself he’s just uncomfortable and _that is all_. She cannot deal with this situation with her hindbrain in murder-mode. 

“Baby?” she asks, leaning down towards him--she can’t quite bring herself to call him “Asset”, if that’s even what he actually wants and not just some terrible leftover bullshit from HYDRA. At least not yet; not before she has to. “Are you okay?” 

Bucky’s eyes flick up to hers, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s still tense and too pale. He looks like he did in the bath, much too small for someone so big and much too uncertain about something that should be really, really simple. Darcy has no idea how to get an answer out of him. 

“Baby,” she says again, voice quieter this time. Tony’s probably going to be an ass about the sweet talk, but she’s got a really limited list of conversational techniques to work with here. “Please talk to us. I know it’s harder when it’s not, uh, physical stuff--I know it’s _hard_ , but you were so good for me last time, I know you can do it.” 

“Are you seriously baby-talking the murder machine? _Seriously_?” Tony asks. 

“Shut up, Tony,” Darcy says, teeth gritting again. If he were an alpha or beta she’d be snarling it, and frankly it’s hard enough not to as it is. 

“No, no, that’s very cute, it’s actually kind of precious--” 

Bucky grimaces, and Darcy’s teeth bare instinctively. 

“ _Shut up_ , Tony!” she barks, voice harsh. Tony startles, then gives her an incredulous look. 

“Did you just _alpha voice_ me, Lewis?” he asks disbelievingly, looking torn between being offended and bursting into laughter. Darcy turns bright red. 

“Could we just--I’m _sorry_ , okay, just could we focus here?” she says, grimacing at herself. Accidentally alpha voicing an omega who’s almost old enough to be her _mother_ \--yeah, she’s not living that one down anytime soon. 

“Hey, don’t look at me, I’m apparently the only one who _is_ focused here,” Tony snorts, rolling his eyes. Darcy only barely bites back a growl. God, she is really just way too damn irrational about--this, all of this. 

_Bucky_. She’s irrational about Bucky. 

She doesn’t even know why, it’s not like she . . . not like she heat-bonded him and knocked him up and then had him run off without even coming down properly first, fuck, of _course_ she’s irrational about him, _fuck_. Fuck. 

“Look, you would want people checking up on you if it were the other way around, right?” she says in frustration, scowling at Tony. “You’d want someone to make sure you were okay!” 

“I’m okay,” Bucky says flatly. It is such a blatant lie that Darcy doesn’t even know how to _approach_ responding to it. Thor lays a hand on Bucky’s shoulder with a low lion-purr and Bucky’s blank expression flickers into confusion. “I’m okay,” he repeats, sounding unsure. 

Thor purrs a little louder, steady and soothing, and Bucky’s eyes dart around the room anxiously, still too low for eye contact. Darcy, again, does not let herself theorize on the source of the reaction, and drops into a crouch in front of him, wrapping his hands up in hers. He tenses when she touches the metal one but doesn’t pull away, and she takes a steadying breath to force herself to stay calm. Or the closest approximation of it she can manage, anyway, faced with--with--

She’s not going to process what she’s faced with right now, actually, it’s definitely better not to process this right now. 

“Omega,” she murmurs quietly. “You’re not okay. Please tell me why.” 

“They’ll take them,” Bucky says, hunching over to hide his face behind his hair. It only sort of works, with her on the floor. “They’ll--I need to fix it. I _have_ to.” 

“Baby, I swear, Tony and Bruce can figure out just about _anything_. If they can’t come up with a pill to do it they’ll work out something else,” Darcy promises, squeezing his hands, and Bucky cringes. She continues not to think about the kind of medical procedures he’s probably picturing, because she’s clearly having enough trouble keeping her pheromones under wrap as it is. 

“ _Have_ to?” Bruce asks from the door, voice quiet and careful. Bucky nods jerkily, arm whirring distressingly as his fists tighten under Darcy’s hands. 

The bottom drops out of her stomach. 

“Wait,” she says slowly, staring at him. “Because--you mean because you think HYDRA will take them.” 

“I’d fuck up,” Bucky says tightly. “I’d be slow and more noticeable and they’d be able to--I’d need things, they’d be able to _watch_ for that. And if I . . . if I had--I wouldn’t be able to--” 

Darcy allows herself, for one moment, to picture a HYDRA STRIKE team catching up with a heavily pregnant Bucky. Catching up with a Bucky with _pups_ , tiny and sweet and defenseless little--

Her head swims and her hands go white-knuckled around his, nausea rising in her throat. She wants to throw up. 

“Fuck,” Tony mutters. Bruce lets out a very slow breath, green glinting in his irises, and Darcy . . . Darcy remembers Steve talking about “after the war”, about . . . fuck. Fuck, she she’s so stupid, Steve flat-out _told_ her and she didn’t even . . . 

_Fuck_. 

“Okay,” she says as steadily as she can force herself to. “But what if . . . if they couldn’t, like, if they _wouldn’t_ \--would you want to keep the pups then?” 

“But they will.” Bucky lifts his head just enough to give her a dull-eyed look that makes her feel even sicker. The certainty in it is some kind of agonizing to see. 

“But if they couldn’t,” Darcy repeats slowly, forcing her grip on his hands to loosen before her nails end up digging too hard into the biological one. “Would you want to keep the pups then?” 

Bucky’s face crumples and he shrinks in on himself again, shoulders hunching. Darcy’s heart sinks and she lets go of the metal hand to reach up and cup his cheek instead. Bucky stiffens, eyes going wide and nervous as they dart around the room again. He has to know she won’t hurt him, she thinks--wouldn’t let anyone in the whole damn tower hurt him, if that was even a concern--but that just makes it worse that he’s still having this much trouble answering her. 

“Baby,” she says as tenderly as she knows how to, trying to pretend the asking isn’t killing her, “ _do_ you want to keep the pups?” 

“Yeah,” Bucky whispers, eyes on the floor and voice so low Darcy can barely hear it. She thinks she might cry. Or snarl. Bruce and Tony exchange looks over their heads and Thor shifts back, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Right,” Darcy says, gritting her teeth and breathing out again. “Okay then. Uh, Tony--” 

“Sure, of course.” Tony throws his hands up in the air. “‘Feel free to bring people over’ _absolutely_ included moving in pregnant WWII-era super soldiers on the run from Neo-Nazis, of course it did.” 

“Good, because that’s what’s happening,” Darcy retorts tersely, rubbing her hand down Bucky’s neck to squeeze his shoulder. “We’ve got, like, four guest rooms on the Thor floor alone, okay, there’s plenty of room. Hell, we’ll lock _down_ our whole stupid floor if you feel safer that way.” 

“I can’t _stay_ ,” Bucky says, visibly balking at the idea. 

“One with child should not be abandoned to the battlefield,” Thor says firmly. “Most certainly not one who carries the child of one of our house.” 

“Also Cap would literally kill us if we let you leave without at least _implying_ you could stick around, stomach parasites or no,” Tony points out meaningfully, mercifully reasonable for once. Well, aside from the “parasites” line, anyway. “Possibly also Wilson and Romanoff, actually, and after this weekend Barton might throw in just for the hell of it.” 

“I do not understand,” Thor says, frowning at him. 

“Yeah, about that,” Darcy says, wincing as Bucky grimaces. “Remember that guy they’re looking for in Perth?” 

“Ah,” Thor murmurs, his eyes flicking back to Bucky and expression softening. “That I do understand.” 

“So yeah, new guest on the Thor floor,” Darcy says, exhaling roughly. “It’ll be great, we’ll make up a den and ramp up the security system to eleven. Fun times all around. Actually let’s go for, like, fifteen, there’s a fifteen, right, J.A.R.V.I.S.?” 

“Something can be arranged, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. assures her. Tony makes an offended noise. 

“Sure, why not, let’s plan _around_ the building owner, that’s absolutely how it works,” he says in exasperation, rolling his eyes. 

“Okay, _you_ explain to Captain America why we put his _pregnant_ best friend out on the street, then,” Darcy retorts, narrowing her eyes at him. 

“Uh, no, absolutely never,” Tony replies, grimacing at the thought. “You could’ve mentioned needing to upgrade your furniture after the last redecorating, though, since I have now timed that out and realized why you _needed_ it. Now we’re gonna have to buy you new shit all over again.” 

“It’s not like he’s going to have a heat anytime in the next six months, Tony, _Jesus_ ,” Darcy says in exasperation, shooting him a look. Also, she’d upgraded when she’d bought the new stuff. What kind of alpha did he think she _was_? 

“Maybe that’s a discussion for later,” Bruce says. He looks down at Bucky. “Have you eaten today?” Then he pauses, and rephrases: “When was the last time you ate?” Bucky glances at Darcy, and she winces--she’s the alpha here, she should’ve asked that. She should have _thought_ of that. 

“Monday,” Bucky says after a moment, expression uncomfortable. “I think. There was--Monday.” 

It’s Thursday. 

Darcy breathes in. Out. 

“Okay,” she says carefully. Then her hindbrain kicks in with a vengeance and she yanks open her messenger bag and starts digging through it in pursuit of a granola bar or gummy worms or _literally anything_ edible, it doesn’t even matter, he needs to eat _something_. She finds an abandoned package of Pop-Tarts that were probably intended for Jane at some point and shoves them at Bucky, then resumes pawing through her bag because seriously, that’s not pregnant omega food. 

She finds a half-empty bag of candied fruit she’s pretty sure is left over from last month with Johnny and ignores the irrational twinge of guilt--actually not that irrational, now, considering what her hindbrain must’ve been thinking all this time--to push it on Bucky, then goes back to the hunt because that’s only barely an improvement. 

“You know I have, like, actual fruits and _vegetables_ here,” Tony mentions, pointedly tipping his head towards the mini-fridge his robots keep the smoothie ingredients in. 

“Then freaking _get_ him some, oh my god, Tony!” Darcy snarls, already shoving her bag onto the nearest table so she can hurry over to it and tug open the door. God, of _course_ Tony let her give him Pop-Tarts when he actually had _real food_ around. 

“No, no, you seem on top of things, Lewis, you got this,” Tony says contentedly, leaning back to watch. “God, alphas are _hilarious_.” 

“Suck my knot, Stark,” Darcy snaps irritably, arms already full of just about everything recognizable. Some of the crap in here is clearly rich-people vegetables and not to be trusted--God knows what it tastes like, much less how to actually _eat_ it--but there’s enough things that aren’t ninety percent leaf that they can at least make a _start_ on feeding Bucky something decent. “Do you like kiwi, baby, oh and there’s raspberries--wait what the hell, these are yellow, _Stark_ \--”

“Raspberries come in yellow!” 

“Oh my _God_ , in what universe?!” 

“As a _matter of fact_ \--” 

“Why don’t you just take him up to your kitchen,” Bruce suggests, voice mild but dry and pheromones pointedly increasing. Bucky’s eyes go half-lidded and he leans a little towards him, then seems to realize what he’s doing and straightens up again uncomfortably, expression wary. Darcy wonders how many beta doctors used to--Darcy _does not wonder_ , Darcy does not wonder a fucking _thing_. 

“Kitchen, yes, kitchen sounds good,” she says, abandoning Tony’s smoothie supplies entirely and looking back to Bucky. He hasn’t opened the Pop-Tarts and it doesn’t look like he’s touched the candied fruit either, which makes her hindbrain nervous. Is he sick? Does he just not like it? Is--she shakes her head, _quick_ , and huffs out a sharp little breath. “Is that okay, baby?” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky replies slowly, sounding like he doesn’t quite know the answer and is just going with the easiest thing. Darcy imagines him sneaking out in the middle of the night and feels sick all over again. 

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll make you something good, all right--um, I mean, I’m not a _great_ cook or anything, but, like . . . something.” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky repeats, looking uncertain as his eyes flick around the room again. 

Tony and Bruce exchange looks, then give Thor the _same_ look, and Darcy ushers Bucky out of the lab. A little of the tension seems to drain out of him once they’re moving again but he stays hunched in on himself, wrapping his coat tight around his body. 

Thor follows them into the elevator probably to make sure Bucky’s not lying and going to murder her and get into the vents or something, and Tony and Bruce disappear deeper into the lab, hissing at each other. Thor looks after them, dubious, and then the doors shut. 

“Someone must explain to me how the man with next to _no_ hearing remembers the range of his teammates’ senses better than those with perfect ears,” he says. “That is at least the fourth time this week Stark and Banner have made an aside that they meant to go unheard within earshot of the person they meant it to go unheard by.” 

“What, did Tony say something dickish?” Darcy wrinkles her nose, confused. Not like that’s new, but it’s not like he usually waits on that kind of thing. 

“They’re worried,” Bucky mutters, looking at the floor. “Anybody’d be worried.” 

“Perhaps, but I remain troubled that they cannot infer the range of your hearing after all this time spent as Steve’s shield-brothers,” Thor says, unimpressed. “And they forget his as well. Perhaps our training sessions have grown lax if they have such troubles.” 

“Yeah, okay, but let’s worry about that particular problem _later_ ,” Darcy says. As long as it’s not directly relevant to what’s going on with Bucky right _now_ , she doesn’t really care. They get to the Thor floor and Darcy beelines for the kitchen, only peripherally aware of Thor purring quietly at Bucky, who’s completely silent. 

Which is . . . not unexpected, really. 

Thor says goodbye--“takes his leave”, more accurately, since it’s Thor--and disappears into Jane’s room, which may or may not be a good thing. He’s probably giving them space while staying close enough to kick Bucky’s ass if it comes down to it, except Bucky is _pregnant_ so Darcy has no idea how that’s supposed to work. She rifles through the fridge, which is tragically devoid of leftovers but at least has vegetables and fruit and yogurt, and comes up with two cups of yogurt, a box of strawberries, and another one of blackberries, all of which she plants on the counter in front of Bucky with a spoon. 

“Yogurt?” Darcy asks hopefully as she pulls out a stool for him. “Is yogurt good? Are you having cravings yet, is that a thing yet? I will totally make you, like, a sandwich or something with actual meat in it too, but like, to _start_ is yogurt good.” 

“I’m not heated up,” Bucky says uncomfortably, tucking his hair behind his ear as he takes the offered seat--or obeys the implicit order, but that’s a little too much to worry about right now. Darcy doesn’t even know how to answer that, because of course he’s not heated up, he’s _pregnant_. He still hasn’t eaten the Pop-Tarts or candied fruit, but he’s also still carrying them, so . . . 

“So”, she guesses. 

“I know?” she tries finally. “I mean--you’re hungry though, right?” 

“No,” Bucky says, then pauses. “I don’t think so. Maybe.” 

Darcy takes an instant and _hates_ , blindly and without direction, and then breathes out slow before the reaction can poison her scent. 

“I want to make you lunch,” she says. Is this a HYDRA-needs-to-die-in-a-fire thing or a the-forties-were-ridiculous-about-omegas thing? Steve’s mentioned a few of those before and they were definitely . . . they were definitely a thing, oh man. Who knows if Bucky even _remembers_ the forties, though. “Like, I don’t care if you’re not heated up, I still want to. Is that okay?” 

“Uh--okay,” Bucky says slowly, glancing around the kitchen restlessly. He looks upset and the hindbrain does _not_ like it, but since he’s already bred the best idea it’s got is feeding him. Admittedly, Darcy doesn’t cook much--her parents weren’t that into it and basically her entire litter grew up on frozen foods and cereal--but she can at least handle, like, ramen and Hamburger Helper. 

“Beef and noodles okay?” she asks, since she can’t exactly expect him to know the brand names. Bucky gives her a helpless look and shrugs, and that’s--well, it’s going to _have_ to be good enough, Darcy guesses. “All right, then, coming right up.” 

She gets the big pan on the stove and heating up, then digs the meat out of the fridge and the Hamburger Helper out of the pantry. It’s not exactly fine dining, but at least it’ll be quick. God knows she’s fed it to Jane enough times. 

. . . Jane was never _pregnant_ , of course, so that’s a whole other thing. 

A whole . . . a whole big, terrible thing. 

Darcy dumps the meat in the pan and breaks it up with a wooden spoon and tries not to freak out about any of the stuff she’s been doing her damnedest not to freak out about the past three months. She doesn’t think about Steve or HYDRA or WWII or even harmless stuff like how Bucky’d looked underneath her, pressed back into her sheets with wet hair and flushed glitter-dusted skin, the little keening sounds he’d made between pleas for her knot, the--

That is _not_ a harmless thing to think about, Darcy fumes at herself, smushing a chunk of ground beef with the flat of the spoon. 

She looks at him. He still isn’t eating, and she tries not to frown. Super-soldier or not, he said he hadn’t had anything in days--how is he not _starving_? 

Then she thinks about it. 

“Do you need permission?” she asks carefully. Bucky’s mouth thins. 

“No,” he lies. Or--maybe doesn’t exactly lie, but . . . _something_. 

“It’s for you, omega,” Darcy says, still careful. “I like it when you let me take care of you. Remember?” 

“. . . I remember,” Bucky replies quietly. He tears open the Pop-Tarts and starts breaking off a bite at a time, chewing mechanically but steadily, and Darcy’s shoulders loosen a little. Although she kind of wishes he’d gone for the yogurt, now, but her hindbrain isn’t exactly complaining about watching him eat the first thing she gave him either. He needs to eat a lot more than that anyway, under the circumstances. 

He’s still not looking at her, though; his eyes are fixed on his lap. At least he’s responsive, but . . . 

“Is it okay?” she asks, mostly just to keep him talking. 

“Yes, alpha,” he says. He doesn’t lift his eyes. 

It occurs to Darcy that he may not actually be looking at his _lap_. 

“Are _you_ okay?” she asks, forcing her own eyes to stay off his stomach. 

“Don’t know,” he says. It’s a fair answer, all things considered, but really not the one she’d been hoping for. 

“Okay,” she says anyway, because what’s she going to do, complain? Not fucking likely. “So, uh. We’ll get you set up after you eat, then, how’s that sound?” 

“I can’t stay,” Bucky says, staring into the yogurt. “Capt--Steve won’t want me here.” 

“Steve wants you here!” Darcy protests immediately, forgetting completely about the hamburger in favor of jerking her head up to look back to him. “Steve just dragged three Avengers all the way to _Australia_ looking for you, dude, of _course_ he wants you here.” 

“No, not . . .” Bucky hesitates, then just shakes his head. “I’m not that person,” he says. “Not who he thinks I am.” 

“You sure about that? ‘Cause you look an awful lot like that guy,” Darcy says, cocking an eyebrow pointedly. Admittedly it’s not like they have DNA lying around, but the resemblance is pretty distinct, and _something_ made him not kill Steve when he could’ve. Also, well, maybe they can look up some relatives or something, if it comes to that. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Bucky says, still staring into the yogurt. Darcy tries to think of the right thing to say, and for lack of a right thing just keeps going, because, well, sometimes that’s all she’s got. And also she really doesn’t feel comfortable sticking her nose too far in Bucky and Steve’s personal issues, after everything. 

After basically _hurling_ herself in them already, she means. 

“Okay,” she says carefully. “But I still think he’s gonna want you here. I mean you could, like, at least _ask_ him. And even if he doesn’t, uh . . . well. Kinda not up to him?” 

“He’s Captain America,” Bucky says. Darcy’s never heard the name said that bleakly. 

“Well, yeah, but that’s not the name on the deed? Lease. Whatever Tony’s got. And this place is huge as hell, anyway, you guys wouldn’t even have to _see_ each other if you didn’t want to,” Darcy tells him, although she is damn sure that not seeing Bucky Barnes is the literal last thing Steve is ever gonna stand for. 

Unless it’s Bucky not wanting to see him, that is. 

“He’s _Captain America_ ,” Bucky says again, a little desperation creeping into his tone. Darcy hesitates, tightening her grip on the spoon. Steve’s Captain America, yeah, but Bucky is _Bucky Barnes_. Even she knows the story there, the whole spiel from “best friends from childhood” right up until “the only Howling Commando to give his life for his country”. 

Bucky Barnes is supposed to be the only guy who can look at Captain America and still see Steve Rogers first. 

Or that’s what everybody says, anyway. 

“And you’re pregnant and on the run from a bunch of psycho Nazi sympathizers who kept you on a choke chain for longer than most people get to _live_ ,” she says finally, blunt and brutal and forcing herself to focus on stirring the browning meat. He’ll listen if she’s blunt, right? Or he’ll _hear_ her, at least. “Or, uh . . . Nazi-Nazis, not gotta lie, I’m still not actually clear what HYDRA’s deal is. But either way, you really think Captain America is gonna kick you out like that?” 

Bucky doesn’t answer. He stares at the half-eaten yogurt and says absolutely nothing, expression just that little bit too fixed, and Darcy can’t even tell what’s behind it. If he can’t decide, if he’s afraid to say it and then be proved wrong, if he just can’t bring himself to speak. 

If he thinks Steve really would, because of what he’s done--what’s been done _to him_. 

She breathes in. She dumps the rest of the ingredients in the pan, gives it a quick stir, and cranks the burner up. She sets the spoon aside. 

She breathes out. She goes over to him. 

“Look, uh . . . Asset,” Darcy starts slowly, laying a careful hand on his biological arm. She still doesn’t know how much the metal one can feel. She still doesn’t know how to look at him and think “Asset” either, though, and that’s probably more important to him right now. “Even if Steve didn’t--and he _does_ , I swear he does--but even if Steve didn’t want to see you, that wouldn’t mean you couldn’t stay here, okay? We can help.” 

“Do you remember those alphas in the alley?” Bucky asks, his eyes flickering restlessly around the room again. 

“Kinda, uh, kinda hard to forget ‘em,” Darcy hedges warily, not sure where he’s going with this. 

“They wanted me to go with them,” he says. “They said they’d take care of me. Help.” 

“. . . well, they were HYDRA, right?” Darcy asks helplessly, hating herself for not having anything better. “They’d have said . . . you know, they’d have said anything.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees distantly. His expression doesn’t change and his eyes don’t focus, and Darcy can’t help feeling like what she’s saying isn’t actually that different from what those HYDRA bastards probably said too. Or at least doesn’t sound any different to Bucky, anyway. 

Her eyes drop to his stomach unthinkingly, and then she . . . then she _thinks_. 

“You picked me, though,” she says, swallowing hard. “Remember? I was last alpha standing.” 

“I remember,” Bucky says, and this time his face softens a little, his eyes dropping into his lap. Probably not actually his lap. He brushes the biological hand over his stomach very gently in just the barest graze of his fingertips, barely enough to wrinkle his shirt. Darcy feels the muscles in his arm flex under her hand and swallows again, forcing her thoughts to stay calm and her pheromones to stay mild. 

Bucky picked her. A beautiful and hurt omega with no place safe to go had picked her, trusted her, gone to her--had come _back_ to _her_. He’d put what few scraps of faith he could cobble together in her and followed her lead: a gorgeous, glittering omega laid back in her bed on her word and nothing else. 

A gorgeous, glittering, _fertile_ omega. 

“Me too,” Darcy says, shoulders tight and eyes fixed on Bucky’s hand against his stomach. “I remember.” 

Fuck. 

She’s going to be a _dad_.


	9. california king

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the point in the story I got super stuck at and super sick of while [Rainne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne) was suffering similarly with her own chapter, so we swapped WIPs and she wrote the first draft of this chapter while I took over writing a chapter for the latest installment of her [inverse!shrinkyclinks](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3597534). She had like a page that I basically immediately derailed with all the good hard Bucky-getting-fucked I couldn’t write here and she decided to make me suffer in retaliation, so you can all thank her for any and all impending doom.

Darcy goes back to the stove and stirs the food, then paranoidly double-checks the box instructions even though she’s made Hamburger Helper about a thousand times in her life--she’s not the littermate who went to culinary school, okay, without instructions she could probably burn water. She literally _has_ burned water, which actually amounts to burning the _pan_ and after the third time that happened they stopped leaving her in the kitchen unsupervised, because big surprise, pans are friggin’ expensive and Darcy had three littermates _plus_ their parents had a surprise litter of three when they were in high school. 

Like, two years before _college_ high school. 

So yeah, they stopped leaving her in the kitchen unsupervised, and yeah, she’s made a lot of Hamburger Helper. 

Darcy reduces the meat to a simmer, gives it another stir before covering the pan, and then sets the timer for about ten minutes. She’ll need to keep stirring in-between, but she definitely needs the timer or she’ll overcook it ‘til the pasta’s mush. She swears her litter-sister can tell if pasta’s perfect just _looking_ at it, but yeah, no, she is not that Lewis sister. 

She eyes the pan warily for a moment, then sets aside her stirring spoon on a towel and heads to the fridge. Darcy really wishes she knew more about pregnancy; she doesn’t know if whole milk’s too heavy or orange juice is too acidic or the mixed berry smoothie would make Bucky nauseous. She’s pretty sure the Pepsi and bottled frappucino drinks are out--caffeine’s a no-go, right?--but what about chocolate milk, would _that_ be too much caffeine? Like, there's caffeine in chocolate, right?

. . . they have way too many drink options in their fridge. She doesn’t even know if _Bucky_ knows what he can drink right now. 

All right, well, there’s an easy solution to at least that problem, isn’t there. 

“Milk okay?” she asks, peering back over her shoulder at Bucky, who startles slightly at the attention and nearly crushes the strawberry he was about to pop into his mouth. “Sorry. Um. Milk?” 

“. . . yes?” Bucky says hesitantly. Again, Darcy can’t help worrying he might have as little idea here as she does--who knows if he’s been drinking milk wherever he’s been, and even if he knew anything about pregnancy before, she doesn’t know how much he remembers. 

Hell, she doesn’t know how much he remembers about _anything_. It’s entirely possible he doesn’t know a damn thing about the forties or Steve and just read up on himself in the library. 

But that is really not a thought she has room to dwell too much on right now. 

“Okay then,” she says, grabbing the gallon out and collecting a couple glasses to set on the counter. She fills one to the brim and the other halfway, and he looks confused when she pushes the fuller one towards him. “Trust me, you need it,” she says firmly. God, super-soldier metabolisms are bad _enough_ , what’s Bucky’s going to be like while he’s pregnant? 

She can’t tell if he’s showing yet--he’s wearing too many layers and underfed on top of that. Actually, she’s not even sure if he _should_ be showing yet, maybe she should be asking J.A.R.V.I.S. for some reading material or a timeline or something. She really wants to feed him up, though. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky says slowly, tugging the glass closer to himself with a wary expression. Darcy exhales roughly, letting the tension out. She has a hindbrain, yes, she’s very well aware of that fact. It does _not_ need to go off every time he says something that makes her protective pheromones want to light somebody HYDRA-affiliated on fire. 

Darcy takes a sip of her milk, then heads back to stir the Hamburger Helper again. When she turns back around, Bucky’s holding his own glass in the metal hand and taking very careful sips, and an irrational part of her panics a little. It’s been a year since HYDRA, right? He’s _had_ meat and dairy since then, she’s not about to make him sick or anything? God, and she gave him _yogurt_ , too--

He’s looking at his stomach. 

Fuck. He’s going to be the mother of her pups. 

He _is_ the mother of her pups. She’s six months from being a dad. She can’t be a dad, she’s been _avoiding_ being a dad, being a dad was a thing that was going to happen, like, in her _thirties_. Possibly her forties. Possibly _never_. Her littermates already have their parents’ demand for grandbabies covered, okay, and their younger siblings are still in middle school anyway, and she was just--she is just not prepared for this. 

Darcy breathes out and tries to be calm. She can’t let her pheromones get riled up right now or, well, maybe ever again in her life. She watches Bucky drink the milk a sip at a time and work his way carefully through the strawberries, and she hopes it’s enough. 

God. He’s the mother of her pups and she didn’t even watch his damn _cartoon_. 

It takes way too much effort not to make a hysterical noise at that thought, and Darcy forces herself to go stir the food again and then drags a stool up to the opposite side of the counter and straddles it, folding her arms on the counter to lean forward on. 

“We need to talk,” she says. Bucky freezes halfway through a sip of milk and she winces. “Okay--sorry, yeah, I could’ve phrased that better. Sorry. Very sorry. Um.” 

“Um,” Bucky repeats slowly, his eyes flicking up to her face as he sets the glass down. Darcy tries not to wince again, but it only works so well. 

“It’s more I wanted to talk _to_ you,” she says. “In a not-horrible way. Please believe me that I do not mean any of this in a horrible way, okay?” 

“Okay,” Bucky repeats again, even slower. He’s still watching her face. It’s probably the best she can expect, Darcy thinks morosely. 

“Just . . . I want you to know you can talk to _me_ , okay?” she tells him carefully. Bucky doesn’t say anything, so she keeps going. “If you have any questions or need anything or whatever, really, whatever works. I want to be honest with you and I want you to feel safe to be honest with me too. I maybe can’t tell you everything sometimes, but I’ll say that, okay, I won’t lie to you. And you can do the same for me, if you feel comfortable with that.” 

“Why?” Bucky asks. Darcy’s fingers dig into her arms. 

“Because--well, you’re gonna have pups, yeah?” she says, hoping that’ll help him understand. “And, uh . . . that kinda means I am too. Because, you know, I’m gonna be their dad. Which is kind of new territory for me, honestly, and I may be slightly terrified about it. Or, um . . . extremely. _Extremely_.” 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, wary expression immediately turning guilty. “I thought--”

“No, I know, I believe you!” Darcy says quickly, putting her hands up. “Like, I have no reason not to believe you, and I definitely do believe you. And I’m not, like, _mad_ or anything.” 

“You smell mad,” Bucky says tonelessly, eyes flicking down to the counter again. Which . . . yeah. Darcy can’t really argue with that. And she said “honest”, didn’t she? 

“Okay, I’m mad,” she admits with a grimace. “But not at _you_. Not even a little at you. I’m mad at those assholes who--the fucks you told Tony and Bruce about, and all the other bastards who hurt you and put you through all this shit and made it so you don’t even know stuff about your own _body_.” 

She actually still can’t quite get her head around the fact Bucky knows so little about himself that he didn’t know he was _fertile_. That’s just . . . no, no, pheromones need to stay under control, she is _not_ thinking about that while her pheromones need to stay under control.

“I don’t blame you for getting bred when you didn’t even know it could happen,” she says. “That’s not on you.” 

“But I did it,” Bucky says, still not looking at her. 

“Dude, we kinda did it _together_ ,” Darcy reminds him, having to stifle another hysterical noise at the thought. Maybe it would’ve been a laugh, but she’s pretty sure no matter what it would’ve been unfortunate. “I mean--that’s how it works, yeah?” 

Bucky’s silent for a long moment, then glances up, expression assessing. Darcy forces herself to hold her tongue this time, pretty sure he’s not going to talk if she doesn’t keep her mouth shut. 

“Is it really okay?” he asks quietly, and Darcy nods so fast she nearly hurts her neck. 

“It’s okay,” she swears. “It is _more_ than okay.” She almost says, _it’s what you wanted, right?_ , except she doesn’t actually know if he remembers that and really doesn’t want to be the one to remind him if he doesn’t. Also, this is definitely not _how_ he wanted it.

Bucky’s silent a moment longer. Darcy clamps her jaw shut and waits. 

“Okay,” he says finally, then drops his eyes back to his stomach. It’s not perfect, but Darcy’s not picky; it’s still progress. 

“Okay,” she repeats. She should probably go stir the hamburger again, but this is a lot more important than that. “I’m--I know you’re worried about the pups. But I’m gonna take care of you, okay? All of you. I promise. I’m not gonna hurt you and I’m not letting anybody else do it either.” 

“You can’t promise that,” Bucky says, his expression and scent both sliding towards a blankness that Darcy can’t imagine him actually feeling. 

“I--yeah, okay,” Darcy says, breathing out. Her hindbrain’s spitting nails at the thought she can’t, but she’s not delusional; _she_ definitely wasn’t the one who took out those HYDRA fucks in the alley, and she never could’ve been. That doesn’t mean there’s not things she can do, though. “But I can promise anybody who wants to try is gonna have to get through a _hell_ of a lot more than just me before they can. Everyone in this tower is gonna be between them and you.”

“That’s not . . .” Bucky trails off, furrowing uncertainly, and Darcy presses the advantage because . . . well, she _needs_ the advantage. She’s not gonna pretend otherwise. 

“I can take care of you, omega,” she tells him, letting her protective pheromones slip out just a little to make the point. “And I will.” 

Bucky’s silent again, but his shoulders loosen a little and his face softens into something more reminiscent of how he looked in her bed. Darcy’s hindbrain preens at the sight. She wants to kiss him; her hindbrain wants to _rut_ him. She stifles both urges, which is made much easier when the timer has the mercy of going off and she can get up quick to go take care of it. 

She gives it one last stir, burns her mouth taking a bite to make sure the pasta’s not undercooked, then sets the lid aside and turns off the stove. The box said five servings, which is probably a lot even for a super-soldier’s lunch, so she reserves about a fifth of it on a plate for herself and dumps the rest in one of the medium-sized mixing bowls that they literally never use unless Erik’s making pancakes, which only happens once in a blue moon these days. 

She transfers the plate and bowl over to the counter and digs up a couple forks, sliding one across to Bucky. Honestly, she kind of expects him to give the food one of the slightly offended looks Steve gets when faced with anything especially processed--preservative-laden food was apparently not a thing poor Irish kids ate in the 1940s, although you’d think the army would’ve gotten him used to the idea. Bucky doesn’t really react at all, though, and she wonders if he doesn’t remember the kind of food he grew up eating or if maybe his family was a little better off or . . . yeah, she’s really got no idea. 

She wonders if there’s some recipes Steve could give her, or at least some favorite foods he could tell her to supply. She’s sure he would if he could. 

Assuming he’s still talking to her after this, anyway. 

Well. At least it’s got to be better than rations. 

“Sorry, it’s not great, but I swear it’s filling as hell,” she tells him, pushing the bowl over. “Got my littermates and our younger siblings through pretty much all of our growth spurts, at least.” 

“It’s _hot_ ,” Bucky says, staring at the bowl like it’s the height of gourmet dining. Darcy’s fingers itch for her taser. 

“Hopefully not too hot,” she says, carefully stomping down her hindbrain. “Maybe give it a minute to cool off a little. It’s nothing fancy, pretty much just ground beef and noodles. Is that, like--okay? Do you like that?” 

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, just barely frowning. It’s been a _year_ , Darcy thinks, feeling sick. 

“Okay,” she says. “Um--what _do_ you like, then?” 

“I don’t know,” Bucky says again, looking down at the bowl as his frown deepens. 

“Right,” Darcy says, refusing to let her pheromones flare. “Okay, no problem. We’ll experiment.” Bucky’s shoulders tense, and she curses herself _viciously_. “We’ll make different stuff, I mean. And if you like it we’ll make it again and if you don’t we won’t, yeah?” 

“Right,” Bucky says. It sounds less like an answer than just him repeating her, but she’ll take whatever she can get. 

“Eat, baby,” she says, glancing down at his untouched bowl. He’s gotten through about half the milk, at least, but he didn’t really eat much of the fruit and yogurt. “You’re hungry, right?” 

Bucky pauses, then picks up the fork without saying anything. For a second it’s like he’s never held one before and then muscle memory or something seems to kick in and he’s taking a bite, and it occurs to Darcy to start worrying about brain damage. It’s been a _year_. 

He’s eating quicker now, at least, and looks a lot more invested in the process than she’s used to seeing on anyone not immediately post-mission. Hot food all the way, Darcy notes to herself. When it’s vegetable time they’re skipping salads for stir fry. 

Maybe this counts as post-mission, for Bucky. A long, long mission that he’s just come in from.

Darcy takes a few bites off her own plate but mostly just watches Bucky eat for a while, the sight soothing her stressed alpha hindbrain like only proof of providing for a well-bred omega can. She’d always kind of assumed people were exaggerating that effect when they talked about it, but no, it’s definitely getting to her. 

And kind of getting to her _clit_ a little too, if she’s going to be brutally honest here. 

She takes one last bite of her own plate, then dumps the mostly-uneaten pile into Bucky’s bowl and goes to wash up. It doesn’t take long, but by the time she’s done he’s finished and Darcy takes the bowl and his fork to wash too. Bucky moves onto the yogurt, which is gratifying, although he’s giving the sink some restless looks. Maybe a 1940s omega would be the one doing the washing up or maybe he's having flashbacks to being waterboarded. 

God, this is the worst.

He eats both the yogurts but doesn’t go back to any of the berries after, and Darcy gives him a careful look as she takes the cups to rinse out and spoon to wash. 

“Are you still hungry?” she asks. Bucky takes a long moment, clearly putting in a lot more effort than the question should really merit. 

“I don’t think so,” he says at last, shaking his head. 

“Okay,” Darcy says, biting her lip and trying not to think about brain damage. “Just, if you’re hungry you need to eat. And if, like . . . if you’re having trouble _telling_ if you’re hungry, you need to let me know, okay? The pups need fed so they’ll be healthy, like . . . um. I’m not actually sure _what_ they need fed, but I’m gonna look it up, okay? Like--makes sense?” 

“The pups need fed to be healthy,” Bucky repeats obediently, staring neutrally at her. Darcy can’t tell if she’s actually explaining something he doesn’t really understand or if he’s just humoring her because she’s . . . because he’s thinking of her as in _charge_ of him, maybe, or something equally unsettling. “I need to feed them.” 

“Uh . . . yeah, basically,” Darcy says, biting her lip again. She really hopes she’s handling this right. “Um. So anyway, now that we’ve done that, how about we get you in a room? So you can, like . . . settle.” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says, eyes flicking away uncertainly. Darcy hesitates, waiting for him to go on. She can see the moment he realizes he wants to say something just as clear as she can see the moment he decides not to, and it kind of kills her to watch. 

She wonders if he used to be able to school his expressions or if he’s always been this easy to read, but HYDRA probably didn’t want to cultivate a poker face in their brainwashed assassin. It’s not like they were using him for infiltration. 

“Is that okay with you?” she asks eventually, pretty sure she’s not getting anything out of him without asking for it. Hell, she’s maybe not getting anything out of him _with_ asking for it. “I wanna be honest with each other, remember?” 

“. . . I remember,” Bucky replies quietly, eyes flicking around the room again. Darcy tries really hard not to prompt him--to be patient, and give him the room to keep talking on his own--but he doesn’t seem like he’s going to. 

“Is there something else you wanted, maybe?” she tries carefully. That seems like an open enough question. Not a _leading_ question, anyway. 

She hopes. 

Bucky’s quiet for another moment, then nods as he tugs the sides of his jacket closed over his stomach and wraps his arms over it. Darcy _barely_ keeps herself from pressing him for more. Patience is really not her strong suit; she might actually be worse for patience than she is for gentleness. 

That really doesn’t mean shit when it’s what Bucky needs, though. 

“Can I . . .” he starts finally, voice uncertain and slow and expression just barely pained. “Can I stay with you?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Darcy says in relief, shoulders slumping. “I want you on our floor too. There’s a bunch of rooms past mine, you can pick whichever one you want.” 

“No, I mean--” Bucky stops, struggling for a second, and then exhales in frustration. “I mean _with you_.” 

Darcy glazes over briefly, ninety-nine percent certain her hindbrain just tricked her into hallucinating that. Bucky’s expression doesn’t change, though, and he’s obviously waiting for an answer. 

“Sure,” she says weakly, feeling a bit faint. Or a lot faint. Which, well, it’s only a request to share a suite from a gorgeous and dangerous omega who picked her over all other contenders and begged her to knot him through a heat he barely knew how to handle and is going to be _whelping_ her _pups_ \--

Jesus. 

_Jesus_. 

“You can stay wherever you want, baby,” she manages slightly more coherently. “If you wanna sleep alone you can have your own den, but if you want to stay with me that’s fine too.” 

“Please,” he says, not exactly helpfully. Darcy breathes out. 

“Yeah. Okay,” she says. “C’mon, then, baby, grab your bag and we’ll get you settled.” 

“If I may, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. interjects politely as they stand. Bucky tenses nervously, and Darcy blinks and glances towards the ceiling. Sue her, she feels like it’s polite to make eye contact with the security cameras when J.A.R.V.I.S. talks. “I apologize for interrupting, but the chemical pheromone scrub procedures I am currently running are not yet complete.” 

“Uh--the what now?” Darcy says, not missing the way Bucky tenses at the word “chemical”, and _especially_ not missing the way he tenses at the word “procedures”. Honestly she’s a little tense about them too, under the circumstances. 

“The chemical pheromone scrub procedures, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. repeats. “Mr. Stark requested that the family suites be prepared for your use, and several members of the maintenance and cleaning staff came up the back way to make certain everything was in order. They have completed their tasks successfully, but some pheromones are currently lingering at a high enough concentration to be noticeable. It seemed prudent to warn you.” 

“We have family suites?” Darcy asks blankly. “We have a back _way_?” 

“‘Suites’?” Bucky repeats, looking wary again. 

“There was also some mention of stress-testing the furniture,” J.A.R.V.I.S. adds delicately, and Darcy buries her face in her hands. She’s going to _kill_ Tony Stark. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” she groans. “I--you know what, okay, fine, forget it. How long until the scrub’s done, J.A.R.V.I.S.?” 

“Final procedures will be completed in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replies. “I will unseal the family suites at that time.” 

“Okay, there you go saying ‘family suites’ again,” Darcy says, frowning. “I mean, there’s the master suite, yeah, but I _swear_ every other suite on this floor’s a single. Like, I checked out the others when we moved in, they’re all exactly the same as mine and Erik’s.” 

“On this side of the floor, yes,” J.A.R.V.I.S. agrees. Darcy pauses for a long moment, then thinks very carefully about the size of the tower compared to the size of their floor. 

“Christ. I always thought the rest of it went to, like, storage for weird security machines or something,” she says finally, shaking her head. 

“The sealed portions of every Avenger’s floor are dedicated to family suites, convalescent rooms, and storage of alternate furniture and decor, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. tells her. “The suites have all been prepared in advance in event of a team pregnancy, adoption, or extended de-aging incident.” 

“‘De-aging incident’?” Bucky repeats, looking alarmed. Darcy can’t even touch that right now, she genuinely just can’t. She has no can for that at all. 

“Do any of the Avengers actually _know_ this?” she asks instead, feeling suspiciously like she already knows the answer. Jane would’ve told her if she’d known Tony Stark wanted to keep them for the rest of their natural lifespans. Jane would’ve _definitely_ told her if she’d known, and she’s pretty sure Thor would’ve said something by now too. 

“Mr. Stark is fully aware of the construction of the tower,” J.A.R.V.I.S. answers, which is literally the most telling thing he could possibly have said. 

“Mr. Stark is the loneliest human being on the planet,” Darcy replies resignedly. Tony doesn’t even _want_ pups of his own, he said it himself. Omega or not, he is just not the kind of person who she would have expected to be thinking about the team whelping, much less actually _planning_ for it. Planning for it before the other Avengers had even agreed to move in, apparently, which is just . . . a thing, definitely a thing. 

Note to self: do not let the pups grow up attention-starved. Just do _not_. 

“I’m sure I couldn’t comment on Mr. Stark’s motivations for his choices in construction,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says. 

“Jesus,” Darcy huffs in exasperation, blowing her hair out of her face. “Screw it, whatever. Like any of us deal with things like normal people anymore anyway. Please tell me they didn’t, like, ninja my stuff over, I really don’t wanna have to re-scent everything.” It’d been stressful enough after Bucky’s heat. 

“Your belongings have not been transferred,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says, and Darcy sighs in relief. “Chemical scrub procedures are now complete, Ms. Lewis. May I direct you and Sergeant Barnes to the family suites?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Darcy says, glancing over to Bucky. “I mean, yes please. Thanks, J.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. sends them out into the hall, where the wall that cuts off the opposite end of the hall that leads to the single suites has disappeared seamlessly to reveal a longer length of hallway beyond. Somehow it never occurred to Darcy that the kitchen stretches out past that space on the other side and there _should’ve_ been something there, and now she kind of feels like an idiot. 

Then again, Tony Stark built the place. Sue her if she wasn’t expecting perfect economy of space. 

Bucky hesitates, giving the newly exposed hallway a leery look, and Darcy glances back to him. She hesitates too, but finally offers him a hand--the left one, just in case. He latches onto it tight, still looking nervous, but follows her down the hall. It’s the same length as the singles hallway, but there’s only about half as many doors. J.A.R.V.I.S. guides them to the first on the left and Darcy opens the door a crack and sniffs warily. There’s no trace of unfamiliar pheromones--it’s all clean and neutral--so she pushes it open and leads Bucky through. 

“Holy shit,” she says in disbelief, eyes nearly bugging out of her head. “This is a _suite_? This is bigger than my parents’ freaking _house_! And they had two litters!” 

“I’m sure you’ll fill the space as you prefer, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says, and Bucky’s hand tightens a little. When Darcy looks, he’s staring straight at the floor with a full-on blush, and she reddens too. 

“Let’s, uh, let’s get through the _first_ litter first, J,” she hedges, mortally embarrassed and trying to distract herself by looking around. The suite really is huge--the design is a Spartan, open-plan thing with a full wall’s worth of windows that Darcy can only assume are made of the same one-way bulletproof glass Tony'd bragged about when they’d first moved in. Darcy’s always kept blackout curtains over hers anyway, personally, but she’s not actually sure they _make_ blackout curtains long enough to cover these windows; even the ceiling in here’s higher than in the single suites. 

Or, more accurately, the floor is lower, sunken like the floor’s main living room and kitchen--it’s a few steps down from the doorway. There’s an individual living room and kitchen here, unlike in her old room, and even a dining area with a table big enough to seat both of them and half the Avengers besides. 

There’s even a damn washer and dryer, she finds as they head further into the place and she starts opening doors and discovers the laundry room, which is surprisingly cozy for a laundry room. Darcy’s not gonna lie, after all the months she and Jane have spent bickering over whose turn it was to wash their clothes when they didn’t have time to wait for the laundry service, she’s kind of pissed to find out they apparently had multiple machines on the floor the entire time. 

The kitchen’s gorgeous, way bigger than they’ll ever need with actual granite countertops and shiny new appliances and cupboards full of cookware and kitchen gadgets she wouldn’t know how to use for anything but a blunt instrument if her life depended on it. The living room is similarly overlarge and has a fireplace, a pair of couches that are practically nests in their own right, and a pile of beanbag chairs stacked up in the corner. Darcy was not previously aware you could get beanbag chairs made out of leather, much less in that _size_ , but apparently that is in fact a thing. 

Learn something new every day, she guesses. 

There’s a really nice bathroom next to the laundry room and a door that leads to a surprisingly large office on the opposite side of the room--God knows why either of them would need an office, but it’s there--and in the very back, there’s a short hallway that leads to the bedrooms. Two of them are obviously meant for pups, the closest bare except for bunk beds and the next one sporting a little row of bassinets against the far wall. There’s a Jack and Jill bathroom connecting them, which cements Darcy’s certainty that a man with no concept of how actual litters behave built the place, because there is no _way_ two separate litters would ever share one bathroom without ruining their parents’ lives. Darcy distinctly remembers the long slow meltdown that was getting ready for school every morning even _before_ her family’s junior litter was born, and they'd only been toddlers when she'd left for college. 

The last bedroom is the master bedroom, which is basically a suite all its own because Tony Stark was clearly not hugged enough as a child. The bathroom looks more like a spa, jacuzzi and alarmingly large rainfall shower and all, and the mini-fridge by the bed is twice the size of her old one. The bed itself is at least a California King--it might be _bigger_ than a California King, actually. Darcy’s not sure they even make anything bigger than that, but if they’d do it for anyone they’d do it for Tony, so yeah, she probably shouldn’t be surprised. 

Seriously, though, the thing is even bigger than Jane and Thor’s bed. Why would--Darcy stops, looks at the bed again, and thinks _really hard_ about how lonely Tony probably was as a kid. 

Yeah, okay. Never mind. 

Of course he’d give the family suites beds big enough for the pups to climb into without disturbing their parents. 

Darcy exhales, then moves on to checking out the closets. There’s two, both walk-ins nearly bigger than her entire dorm room back at Culver, and a little of the tension goes out of the hand Bucky’s holding hers with. She glances back to him, but he’s looking at the closets. 

“Big enough, you think?” she jokes. 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says, biting his lip. “Can I--can I have one?” 

“Whichever one you want,” Darcy says, hindbrain screaming violent and hateful things at various Nazi-affiliated persons and organizations. 

“Thank you, alpha,” Bucky says, then hesitates for a moment before reclaiming his hand, his eyes flicking low as he does. Then he leaves. Darcy stomps down on the irrational instinctive panic and follows him out into the living room. 

“Do you like it?” she asks. “Like, uh--you want to stay here?” 

“I want to stay where you’re staying,” Bucky says, his expression tinting into uncertainty. 

“Okay,” Darcy says, and well, it’s way too much, but her suite doesn’t exactly have room for pups as-is, so she’s not going to look the gift horse in the mouth. “I’m going to go start bringing over my stuff then, all right? If you wanna get settled.” 

“All right,” Bucky says, watching her intently. Darcy feels a sharp and sudden urge to stop and kiss him as she walks past him to leave, but doesn’t. They haven’t really talked; she doesn’t know what he wants yet. She doesn’t know if _he_ knows what he wants yet. 

Hell, she’s not sure what _she_ wants. 

When she gets out into the hallway again there’s an impressively large rolling bell cart outside the elevator door with a stack of flattened cardboard boxes on top. It smells very faintly of Bruce’s familiar and soothing beta pheromones, but no one else, so she grabs it for its presumably-intended purpose and takes it back to her den to load up. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier than making however many trips taking everything over by hand would’ve been, if nothing else. 

She sets up the boxes and starts packing the bathroom first, since there’s not really much in there. It all fits in one slightly overfull box, anyway, although she buries the vibrator from the heat basket Bucky used at the absolute _bottom_ , turning bright red again just over touching it. She still feels a little weird about having kept the thing, but the idea of throwing it out had felt weird too, and it’d all just--

Yeahhhh. 

She finishes packing up the bathroom, closes the box, and moves on to stripping the bed. It’s not like there’s a rush to move in, no one’s waiting on her room, but she definitely wants Bucky to feel safe in the tower and the best way she can think of to do that is to get her scent all over the sterile blankness of the new suite. Well, both their scents, obviously, but she’s betting Bucky wasn’t allowed to scent-mark anything for a long, long time, and even if he _was_ . . . yeah. Either way his own scent might not be reassuring for him anymore. The scent of an alpha that he picked hopefully will be, though. 

Even if it’s not, honestly _she_ needs to scent the place up, so taking over her own blankets is pretty high priority even knowing they won’t fit the new mattress. Maybe she’ll be able to hang her bed curtains around it, at least; they’re pretty long, there’s always been a lot of leftover curtain bunched up in one place or another. 

The curtains go into the box with the sheets and blankets and she throws her pillows in too, because no omega ever complained about an alpha bringing extra pillows, and then she goes for her clothes and empties her dresser and closet in short order, which takes up pretty much all the space she’s got left on the cart. All the moving around the past few years has made her quick at packing, if maybe not as tidy as she could be. 

Darcy puts her laptop and tablet on the pile, then gives the room a last check. Most of what’s left is nesting pillows and all her knickknacks and books--all the furniture came with the room, and the new suite’s similarly furnished. There’s a _lot_ of nesting pillows and knickknacks and books, mind, but only in comparison to the amount of everything else she owns. Again, she’s been moving around a lot the past few years. 

She takes the bell cart back out into the hall and heads back towards the family suites. Thor’s still in the master and Jane and Erik don’t appear to have come back from the lab, so it’s a straight shot back to the new suite. 

There’s no sign of Bucky as she maneuvers the cart in through the door, which is actually easier than expected because Tony clearly can’t build anything normal-sized. Darcy spends about two seconds trying to figure out if she can get the cart down the steps into the sunken living room, and because she is not an idiot immediately dismisses the idea and just grabs the top two boxes of clothes and heads back towards the master bedroom. She doesn’t see Bucky in any of the other rooms as she passes, but that doesn’t actually worry her until she gets to the bedroom and he isn’t there either. 

Darcy’s heart jumps into her throat and she’s just about to rush out and check the rest of the suite again when she hears a soft sound of impact from the second walk-in closet. The sense of relief is physically _painful_. And really dumb, honestly; what did she think? That he’d cleared out? So what if he had? 

Well--“so” a lot of things, obviously. But it’s still not anybody’s place to stop him, least of all hers. 

. . . now there’s the pups, though. 

“Omega?” Darcy calls, setting the boxes down next to the bed uneasily. Bucky immediately sticks his head out of the closet to give her another one of those too-intent looks. 

“Alpha,” he says neutrally. There’s a blanket in his arms--from the linen closet, maybe? Do they _have_ a linen closet? Darcy’s not sure why he had that in the walk-in of all places, that’s . . . that’s . . . 

God, she’s dumb. 

He’s _nesting_. 

The approving rumble that escapes her chest at that particular realization makes Bucky’s eyes widen and his grip on the blanket tighten, and Darcy’s about to wince and apologize when she sees the rapid rise of color on his cheeks and catches a whiff of his also-rising pheromones. Right, she thinks vaguely past the hindbrain. She’s not the only one with a hindbrain here; a bred omega’s breeding partner making sounds like that while they’re nesting . . . 

Yeah. 

Darcy breathes out, forcing down the instincts that want to go pin him down in the middle of whatever he’s building and rut him ‘til he _whelps_. But to be honest, if it was up to her hindbrain Bucky’d spend the rest of his life wrapped up all soft and sweet in a nest built just to his liking eating truffles out of her hands and getting her knot whenever he asked for it, so . . . yeah. 

_Anyway_. She’s not the literal scum of the earth, so she doesn’t actually go over to him. Just--thinks about it, a little. But only a little. 

“Do you need more blankets?” she asks carefully, tipping her head back towards the door. “I brought the ones from my bed.” 

Bucky’s eyes widen a bit again and he nods roughly, immediately dropping the blanket he’s holding. For a second she thinks he’s about to hold his hands out for the other ones or maybe go grab them himself, but he doesn’t do either, just stays very still and keeps watching her with those too-wide eyes, looking . . . looking like he is just completely incapable of schooling his feelings at all, really. Overwhelmed and confused and just a bare touch of anxious, too. 

Talking to someone who projects so blatantly really should not upset her so much. 

It really, really upsets her. 

“Do you want them?” Darcy says after a moment. She’s not sure what’s keeping him in the doorway. 

“I--yes please, alpha,” Bucky says, eyes slanting down to the floor. “Thank you.” He still doesn’t move, though. She wonders if he was like this before. She doesn’t think so, from what little Steve’s said, but again, Steve’s only said a little. Not enough to be making any sweeping generalizations on, much less enough to be making any assumptions about a specific reaction. 

“Can I bring them to you?” she asks. Bucky’s face flushes and he nods quickly, and Darcy relaxes a little--okay, so he’s anxious, but at least he’s not _upset_. She heads back out into the living room and scoops up the blankets and comforter, grabbing the bed pillows while she’s at it. 

She sort of wishes she’d brought the nesting pillows over on the first go. She definitely would’ve if she’d known he was going to _be_ nesting, but she’d kind of assumed he’d start by unpacking his backpack--assuming he would’ve done anything at all. 

Darcy brings the pile back with her and holds it out, and Bucky accepts it gingerly, biting his lip. He still looks anxious and she really wants to reach up and touch his face or stroke his hair or something similarly soothing, except she doesn’t _know_ if he’ll find it soothing. A lot of omegas like completely different things in and out of heat, and that’s even assuming he wants her taking any liberties at all right now. 

She could ask, but she’s not sure he wouldn’t lie. 

She’s not even sure he’d know the _answer_. 

Bucky stares at her for a moment, then wraps his arms tight around the bundle and ducks his head, mouth just barely opening as he inhales. He flushes darker as he does, and Darcy looks down to the blankets and then she thinks about it and breathes in too and . . . and oh. Right. 

Hindbrain thoughts. 

She stares back at him, strong and gorgeous and smelling like _hers_ , about to take blankets covered in _her_ scent to make _his_ nest, and definitely understands the flush on his face and maybe even the anxiety, too. His nest will smell like her. _He’ll_ smell like her, as sure as if she’d scented his clothes by wearing them around the house or his skin by rubbing up against him or as if they’d split that huge ridiculous bed that she’s still not sure she isn’t leaving to him while she crashes on one of the couches in the office or living room, actually. 

“Is it okay?” she asks, eyes flicking back up. “Do you want a nest that smells like me?” 

“Yes,” Bucky rasps, squeezing the blankets _hard_. “I--yes. Please. I do.” 

“Okay. I’ll get you the pillows from my closet too,” Darcy tells him, and he nods jerkily and then vanishes back into the walk-in. She stands there for a second, wondering _exactly_ how long it’s been since he’s had an alpha scent him in any way that wasn’t . . . wasn’t _degrading_ or _abusive_ or . . . 

She breathes out. She stifles her hindbrain. She ferries in everything off the bell cart and leaves it on the floor to take care of later, and then goes back for all her nesting pillows.


	10. pheromone bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STILL MORE RAINNE-DEALT CHAPTER HERE, I apparently pad a lot as I write soooo we went over. >__>

Darcy loads up the bell cart with the neatest stack of pillows she can, making sure to hug each one and also breathe on and rub her bare hands and face all over them in the process, because obviously she does, of _course_ she does. She doesn’t even look at the knickknacks and books--whatever, she’ll make a third trip. 

She hopes the pillows smell enough like her. She hopes Bucky actually wants that and that she’s not reading him wrong or he doesn’t just _think_ he’s supposed to want that. She just . . . she wants to give him what he wants, whatever will make him feel safe. She’ll make his whole nest _stink_ of her pheromones if it’ll give him that. 

She still doesn’t know how long it’s been since he got to keep an alpha’s scent in any way he wanted. Maybe it’s been since Morita or Carter or that other Howling Commando--she should probably look _up_ the Howling Commandos now, that is probably a thing that she should do. Or maybe that’s too invasive, and hasn’t Bucky been invaded enough, really, and Steve sure as hell isn’t going to--to--

Steve’s going to _hate_ her for this, something small and hysterical inside her thinks, and Darcy squeezes her eyes shut and presses her forehead against the pole of the bell cart and _breathes_. She did wrong by an omega. She did it trying to do _right_ by another omega. Steve can hate her all he wants to--if he even wants to--and she’s still not going to be sorry. 

Bucky trusted her enough to come back to her when he needed help. That’s . . . no, fuck no. There is no way she would ever be sorry about that. 

She takes the pillows to the master bedroom--the bell cart’s light enough to get down the steps this time, so that’s convenient--and pushes the cart up in front of Bucky’s staked-out nesting closet, and he comes to the door and peers out again. Darcy can’t quite get over how big the damn closets are, but she’s not complaining because Bucky picking one out for himself and actively _claiming_ it is . . . she’s really glad he could do that, is all. Maybe Tony had nesting in mind when he designed them, or maybe Tony just really needed a _hug_ the day he designed them. 

“Delivery,” she says, quirking an awkward little smile at him, and Bucky ducks his head and gives her that killer under-the-lash look she’d nearly forgotten about while simultaneously being unable _to_ forget. Darcy has a minor heart attack and shoves the lime green marshmallow pillow she made in high school home ec into his arms. “Um.” 

“Thank you, alpha,” Bucky says, hugging the pillow like all her high school _wet dreams_ and still wearing that same look. Darcy might choke. 

“Okay, I’m just . . . I’m gonna go see what we’ve got for dinner,” she says, because he needs all the food she can possibly feed him but also and more importantly because if she doesn’t leave this bedroom _right now_ she might do something really inadvisable. Bucky blinks, the look on his face shifting into confusion, and Darcy is a coward and _flees_. 

She is just--she is just not properly prepared for this. This morning she was going to go on a dumb and frivolous trip to fucking _New Jersey_ just because she and Thor were bored and the Science Sibs were ignoring them, and now she’s going to be a _dad_. Dads don’t go to New Jersey except maybe to _live_ there. Dads pretty much don’t go anywhere, as far as Darcy can tell. 

There is, miraculously and mercifully, food in the refrigerator. It actually doesn’t even occur to Darcy that there might be until she's halfway out the front door and suddenly remembers the size of the walk-in closets. She goes back and looks, then stares in disbelief at the amount of groceries literally _overflowing_ the damn fridge. The fridge that, for the record, is probably big enough to supply the whole team’s groceries. 

Seriously, she doesn’t think even a pregnant super-soldier could eat all this. She’s gonna have to invite somebody over. Several somebodies. _Everybody_. 

“Okay, clearly dinner is on us this week,” she mutters to herself, checking the freezer and really hoping Erik knows how to cook some of this stuff, because she definitely can’t be trusted to do it. Well--Thor can handle the meat, at least, he’s killer with a grill, and maybe they’ll just try their luck with the vegetables. 

Luckily for Darcy’s level of cooking skill, there’s a frozen lasagna in the freezer--about twelve of them, actually, half veggie and half meat. She grabs one of the veggie ones and flips it over to read the instructions, figuring that after the Hamburger Helper it’ll be, like, balanced. Hopefully. 

_God_ , she’s really got to look up pregnancy nutrition. 

The lasagna’s apparently going to take a while, so Darcy sets the oven to preheat and then rifles through the rest of the freezer in pursuit of side dishes, figuring whatever’s in there is likelier to work out for her better than whatever’s in the fridge. There’s plenty to choose from, most of it in large portions, and a lot of weird-looking bags of “vegetable medley”, which is . . . kind of like a side dish, she guesses? More of one than Belgian waffles or apple dumplings, anyway. 

She drops a medley bag on the counter, debates briefly, then grabs a second one just in case. The lasagna is already twelve servings but she _really_ doesn’t know how much Bucky needs to eat, and if he’s still weird about food then hopefully having as much of it as possible will make sure he eats until he’s full. 

. . . assuming he even knows what “full” feels like. 

_Fuck_ , she is in so far over her head right now. 

Darcy hides behind the kitchen island and does not let herself freak out because she is almost positive Bucky would notice. Super-soldier senses--yeah, he would definitely at least smell her pheromones. She’s also kind of concerned that if she did let herself freak out, it’d turn into a full-blown panic attack, and that is _really_ not something she can do right now. 

Seriously, she hasn’t had a full-out panic attack since somebody mailed her iPod back after Tromso, no way she’s breaking that streak when it’s an anxious and _pregnant_ omega who’d suffer for it. Just--no, she is really not doing that, not at all. 

So she doesn’t. She stays crouched down behind the island and breathes very carefully and thinks about Bucky making a nest that smells like her and Thor suggesting they fly to New Jersey for cake and Jane and Erik taking the notes she shoves under the door when she’s got a surprise heat partner and getting her everything she needs for them. She thinks about Bruce’s eyes going green over what Bucky told him and Tony’s stupidly huge family suites and closets and Ian on the phone telling her she’d helped and Crystal’s weird flowers and . . . and yeah. 

She breathes out. She breathes in. The oven dings, and she pushes herself to her feet and puts the lasagna in and reads the vegetable medley’s instructions. It is definitely not going to take as long as the lasagna, so she sets the timer and abandons the kitchen, assuming she’ll hear it when it goes off. J.A.R.V.I.S. will give her a heads up if she doesn’t, she’s sure. 

She really doesn’t know what to do about Bucky. Dinner seems like an easy enough place to start, at least. 

. . . actually. 

Darcy backtracks and heads out of the suite and to the common kitchen after all, because there is at least one thing the common kitchen definitely has that this one doesn’t. It takes a moment’s searching--she’d bought it _wishing_ Bucky would come back for another heat, but not optimistic enough to be hoping--but she finds it undisturbed in the back of the fridge: a pretty little gold box with a bit of black satin ribbon tied around it in a pretty little bow. 

It’s truffles, because of course it’s truffles. 

Darcy heads back to the suite and finds Bucky still in the walk-in closet, surrounded by every pillow and cushion and blanket she gave him and probably the contents of the entire linen closet too, going by how thickly he’s managed to cover the floor and build up around the walls. It’s the same as last time, a little rudimentary and a little clumsier than most omegas would make, and something small and tight inside Darcy aches looking at it. She wonders what it looked like when he used to den down before. 

It occurs to her that if she knew how Steve nested, she might be able to extrapolate. 

“Back,” she says, lifting her free hand in an awkward attempt at a wave. Bucky looks up at her. He’s pressed back into the far corner, his arms wrapped gingerly around his stomach and her marshmallow pillow tucked in under his knees. It’s for support, Darcy assumes, but seeing it there just makes her hindbrain want to push his legs apart and tuck the pillow under his hips so she can--

_Anyway_. 

“Alpha,” Bucky greets quietly. 

“Um. Dinner’s gonna be a bit. I mean, I guess we did just have lunch but I don’t know what your metabolism’s like right now and I don’t even know if _you_ know, considering, and--” Darcy cuts herself off, wincing, then holds up the truffle box. “I mean. I brought you something?” 

“You brought me something,” Bucky says, fixating on the box. He doesn’t look outright wary, which Darcy counts as a victory. She got him through a heat without fucking him over or trying to force him to do anything he didn’t want to do, and she’s _trying_ to give him what he wants, to take care of him as best as an alpha like her can take care of an omega like him, and . . . and he believes that, she thinks. He’ll maybe even _trust_ that, if she doesn’t fuck up too bad. 

She really doesn’t want to fuck up. 

“Yeah, uh . . . I bought them last week, actually,” she admits. “I thought maybe you’d come back for . . . I didn’t know if you’d need a heat partner again.” 

Bucky’s expression changes, going intent and _intense_ , and Darcy’s hindbrain has to be violently smothered before it has her pinning him into the corner. 

“You thought I might come back,” he says neutrally, his pheromones spiked up sharp and not remotely neutral. “So you got me something.” 

“Yes,” Darcy says, forcing herself to relax a little by pressing her shoulder against the doorframe and glancing around the nest. It looks soft and inviting, even imperfect and incomplete-looking as it is. It also smells like it belongs to her, between the blankets she’s been sleeping in and the nesting pillows she scented. 

It smells like _Bucky_ belongs to her. 

“May I come in, omega?” she asks, exhaling slowly. Bucky stares at her. 

“Yes, alpha,” he says after a moment, shifting back like he thinks he needs to make room. She’d worry he was uncomfortable, but . . . well. He’s not very subtle when he’s uncomfortable. 

“Thank you,” she says, kicking off her boots before slipping into the closet. She doesn’t close the door behind her, and she makes sure to come in far enough that the doorway’s clear if Bucky wants to leave. He hasn’t turned the light on, so it’s a little dim inside, but Darcy notices that less for the minor vision impairment and more for the way it makes the closet feel smaller and more intimate than she’d been expecting. 

It’s nice. 

She’s not sure she’s not going to hell for liking it, though. 

“They’re not the same flavor as last time. I got a mixed assortment,” she tells him, opening the box to show him the truffles. There’s six--she’d almost bought a full dozen but hadn’t wanted the universe to think she was, like, _presuming_ or something. Or jinx herself. Or . . . 

“You got me truffles,” Bucky says as he stares into the box even more intently than he’d stared at her face, his voice a little uneven. Darcy’s hindbrain wants to fucking _fight_ somebody, and her pheromones bleed out a little stronger than she means to let them. Bucky’s shoulders slump and his eyes go heavy, and for a second she remembers Bruce and the lab and expects--something. Except Bucky doesn’t lean in or lean back, he just . . . stays. 

“Yeah, I did,” she says. “You liked them before, right?” Bucky nods soundlessly, then shifts forward onto his hands and knees and creeps up to her corner of the closet. Darcy smothers her hindbrain _viciously_ and picks up a truffle to show him. “This one’s, uh, I think strawberry champagne, I’m not--” 

Bucky leans in and takes the truffle out of her fingers. _With his teeth_. 

Darcy’s brain shorts out completely. Her hindbrain does not, and rumbles low and approving. Bucky’s eyes go heavy-lidded again and he bites down on the truffle looking like the perfect soft and sweet picture of the omega ideal, his pheromones warm and overwhelming. Darcy’s brain refuses to resume normal function and her hindbrain has her rumbling at him again; he swallows and then opens his mouth a little, like he’s panting. 

Darcy can’t quite parse why, for a second, but the hindbrain is _on it_ and has her putting another truffle on his tongue, although hell if she knows what flavor this one is. Bucky makes a soft little sound as he closes his mouth again and looks up at her through his lashes, and her clit _throbs_. She’s actually kind of surprised to realize he’s not on his back when her brain starts to catch up, because she’s pretty sure he was literally on her _knot_ the last time he looked at her like this. 

“Is it--” She stops, swallows; breathes. “Is it good, omega?” Bucky swallows too, the sight making Darcy’s clit throb again, and nods. 

“Yes, alpha,” he says, practically purring, and then very deliberately licks his lips. Darcy remembers glitter on them and what kissing them is like. She’d like to meet the alpha who _wouldn’t_. “Please, alpha?” 

“Yeah, okay,” she breathes, and goes for another truffle. Bucky’s pheromones are as sugar-sweet as ever but there’s something different there now, something deeper and richer and thicker that means _bred_ , that means bred by _her_ , and she’s really, really . . . _it’s_ really . . . 

He takes the truffle with his teeth again, his sweetly dampened lips just barely brushing her fingers this time, and _her_ pheromones spike so hard in response they _both_ shudder. If she didn’t know better--

Bucky doesn’t bite down. He tilts towards her and into that picture-perfect presentation of the ideal omega again, face tipped up towards her and head just low enough for submissive sweetness, neck stretched out and exposed for an alpha’s hand or teeth. His eyes are heavy and dark and his pheromones are even thicker and sweeter and the offer is not _remotely_ subtle. 

Hindbrain takes over again, just a little, and Darcy takes the offer. She leans in and bites the other half of the truffle out of Bucky’s mouth and he immediately moans into hers. It’s not at all the way it was when he was heated up, nowhere near as urgent or restless, but that doesn’t make it any less affecting. 

And more than that--anything he wants, she’d promised herself. 

They kiss. He tastes like fruit and chocolate and sugar and the barest hint of champagne and _omega_. He tastes _right_ , like something she’s been waiting three months and three _lifetimes_ for. Like--

“Alpha,” Bucky pants between them, sounding shaken. Darcy grips his face in her hands and kisses both corners of his mouth and underneath his eyes, and he shudders again and digs his fingers into the blankets beneath them as he presses into the contact with a little keening cry. His pheromones are the only thing she can smell, sweet and full and _ripening_ ; a strong and gorgeous and thoroughly _bred_ omega pleading for his alpha’s touch. 

Darcy kisses him again, tongue and teeth in it this time, and he purrs into it and then whines unhappily when she breaks off for a moment to remind herself to breathe. She groans in defeat and immediately pushes back into the kiss, and the sounds Bucky makes this time are heated and hazy and _hell_ on her higher thought processes. 

“Fuck,” she rasps at some point, rough and breathless, and he _whimpers_. She kisses him even harder and he pushes back into it and tips his head under her hands as her fingers push back into his hair and cup the back of his head. She remembers him on her bed and in her bathtub and on her _floor_ and her hindbrain thrums and thrives on the feeling, the memories, all caught up and glutted on his kiss and his pheromones and its bone-deep certainty of _claim_. 

Bucky’s body is sweet and pliant against hers and he took her knot and her come inside him so eagerly and he has her _pups_ inside him--he’s hers, her omega, sweet and pliant and bred and going to get all big and full and beautiful with her pups and she will _kill_ anyone who even dreams of laying a hand on him. 

He’s hers. He picked her, he’s hers, he’s hers because he _wants_ to be hers. He wants to whelp her pups in a nest that smells like her, he wants her mouth on his mouth, her hands on his body, _her_ knot in _his_ \--

Darcy breaks off the kiss and gasps for air, and Bucky makes a strangled noise, nearly overbalancing for a moment. She presses their foreheads together tight, gripping the thick sides of his hood and breathing through her mouth in an effort to clear her head. It . . . doesn’t exactly work. 

She can fucking _taste_ his pheromones. 

“Jesus,” she wheezes weakly. Okay, that’s--that felt so good and he smells even better, but she’s got to stop now, she needs to--

“Alpha,” Bucky says pleadingly, pressing closer, and she kisses him again. 

She _promised_. 

Darcy’s not sure which of them either knocks or drags the other over, but Bucky’s back hits the cushions and she lands on top of him, slotted in-between his legs just right. She growls and it comes out possessive and pleased and he purrs up at her, squirming up for more contact, another kiss. Her next growl comes out deeper and he keens back softly, and they kiss again. Darcy can’t say exactly when she decided to put her hands on his chest, but his pecs are hard and strong when she cups them and her hindbrain’s thinking about pups and _milk_ and how full they’ll be soon. 

Bucky purrs roughly, pushing his chest into her hands, and she presses her lips to his jaw and pushes the pads of her thumbs up over his nipples through the layers of his shirts, earning yet another keening noise for it. It is the hottest fucking thing she thinks she’s _ever_ heard, and goes straight to her hindbrain and every alpha instinct she’s ever had. 

_Mine,_ it says, they say, _my omega, MINE, sweet and perfect and all for--_

“Staff Sergeant Wilson would like to speak with you, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says; Darcy’s heart stops and she jerks upright in instinctive panic, eyes wide. 

“They’re _back_?!” she blurts in disbelief. Bucky goes paper-white, freezing underneath her. 

“On the phone, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. clarifies, and Darcy sags in relief. 

. . . wait. “Relief” is really not what she should be feeling right now. 

“Uh, no, yeah, that’s okay,” she manages, adjusting her glasses before they fall right off and--

One of J.A.R.V.I.S.’s holoscreens pops up with Sam’s face on it directly in front of her, and Darcy stares at him and curses literally _everything ever_. 

“Uh,” she says stupidly. 

“Hey, Darcy,” Sam greets politely, then glances around. “Barnes there?” 

Darcy exerts some truly superhuman self-control and does _not_ glance down to where Bucky is still flat on his back beneath her wearing that paper-white face, hair splayed on the pillows and legs on either side of her hips and hands . . . proooobably palming knives right now, actually, _she_ would be if she were him. 

“Yeah, he showed up outside,” she says instead. “So I’m guessing Tony called?” 

“Someone had to,” Sam says, expression pointed. Darcy winces; it’s a fair cop. Yeah, she’s been fussing over Bucky, but she definitely had opportunity to slip them an update or five. Or _anything_. 

Sam’s obviously on the quinjet--she recognizes the bulkhead behind him--and she can see Clint’s shoulder pressed against his, although Clint himself doesn’t seem to be interested in the call. It looks like Sam’s holding a StarkTablet and that’s the camera; god knows how J.A.R.V.I.S. is getting the feed of her to send back. 

And please, _please_ let it not be widescreen. 

“Sorry,” she says. “Uh. I mean . . . sorry.” 

She really doesn’t have anything better for that. 

“Uh- _huh_.” Sam raises his eyebrows at her, expression dry. “Where are you? I don’t recognize the room.” 

“Family suite,” Darcy says, and _that_ gets Clint’s attention. He leans into the screen, eyebrows popping, and Sam blinks. 

“What?” he asks. 

“Family suite,” she repeats, touching the corner of the holoscreen to turn it so Sam can see the room outside the closet. Or hopefully that’s how it works, anyway. Bucky takes the opportunity to slip away into the back corner again very carefully, which she both does not blame him for and _hugely_ appreciates. “Apparently all the Avenger floors have ‘em, they’re just locked down until someone needs them. J.A.R.V.I.S. popped the ones on the Thor floor while we were eating lunch.” 

“. . . Darcy, why does the super-assassin showing up mean somebody needs a family suite?” Sam asks slowly. 

“Uh.” Darcy glances back to Bucky uncomfortably; he presses back tighter into the corner, staring warily at the back of the screen. “So Tony didn’t . . . mention that part, then?” 

“ _What_ part?” Natasha’s suddenly there, having grabbed the tablet and turned it to stare suspiciously. Darcy is suddenly _excessively_ aware of the fact she probably has makeout hair and her shirt is definitely rumpled. She does her best to fix both, leaving the screen facing the wrong way for the moment. 

“He was in heat last time,” she says, trying not to think about the fact that Steve must be able to hear this. “He, uh . . . he thought he couldn’t get pregnant.” 

Natasha’s eyes _narrow_ , and Clint snorts. 

“Didn’t your dad ever teach you better than to listen to an omega who said that?” he deadpans wryly. It’s a joke--Darcy knows Clint’s sense of humor, obviously it’s a joke--but Bucky flinches. 

“It wasn’t like that!” she snaps, teeth reflexively baring. Clint’s eyes widen in surprise, and she grimaces and takes a breath through her teeth in an attempt to calm herself. “It’s not like . . . look, I didn’t know who he was and he didn’t know who _I_ was, okay, he was just a guy who needed a heat partner and--” she could mention HYDRA, definitely, but she is not _completely_ suicidal so no, just no--“I happened to be around, okay? It’s not like he came up to me, I found _him_.” 

. . . found him surrounded by HYDRA goons he could’ve taken down at any time but didn’t even touch until she showed up. 

Darcy feels sick for a second, then grits her teeth and ignores it, clambering out of the closet and moving the screen up through the air to stay at face-level for her. No. They hurt him, they didn’t give him a choice in _anything_ , and she’s not going to assume he’s--that he--

She’s just not going there. 

“Your lipstick is smudged,” Natasha says, perfectly neutral. 

“I ate a truffle. Must’ve happened then,” Darcy says flatly. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell anybody when I figured it out--” 

“You knew _before_?” Sam interrupts, eyebrows shooting up again; Darcy grimaces. 

“Yeah, well, ‘metal-armed dude who smells like cinnamon-based baked goods and is on Captain America’s heat cycle’ is the kind of description that makes an impression, okay?” she says. “I worked it out after he left. Like, he was already _long_ gone and what was I gonna do, _tell_ on him? He’s a grown-ass super-soldier, if he wanted to come in he would’ve come in. He wasn’t _hurting_ anybody.” 

Except Steve every time he avoided him, anyway. 

“He could have,” Natasha says. 

“He _didn’t_ ,” Darcy says, teeth baring again. Nobody who didn’t deserve worse, anyway. “He wanted--seriously, what the hell, what did Tony even _tell_ you?” 

“Banner was the one who called, actually,” Hawkeye says, quirking an eyebrow at her. “He said it was a personal thing. Which sounds about right, from what you’re saying.” 

“He tried to give himself a medication abortion,” Darcy says, lips thinning. She’s not going to make Bucky explain this again just because Bruce couldn’t be assed to--and she knows that’s unfair, it’s _Bruce_ , he probably thought it was better this way, but she doesn’t care. “It didn’t work, he just puked up the pills. He only came back because he didn’t know anyplace else that would help him abort without, you know, _the obvious_.” 

“Aw, fuck.” Clint winces, raking a hand back over his scalp. “Bruce and Tony on that?” 

“Not so much,” Darcy says. She doesn’t look at Bucky--she doesn’t want to confirm he’s here, even though they’re probably already assuming he is. Considering how far back into the closet he is . . . yeah, no. She definitely doesn’t want to confirm he’s here. “We asked him if he’d want to keep the pregnancy if it was safe to. He said yes, so we’re moving him in.” 

“So that’s the family suite coming in, I’m gonna assume,” Sam says. Darcy turns the screen towards the bed and the boxes she left stacked up by it. 

“Yuuuup,” she says, popping the “p” at the end. Natasha frowns at the boxes. 

“You’re moving in with him,” she says. 

“Yeah,” Darcy replies, not clarifying past that. They don’t need to know the exact decision-making process right now. “The suites are pretty big, actually, there’s like three bedrooms in this one alone. Like, bassinets and bunk beds and everything and . . . um. Is it just me or is Tony _really lonely_?” 

“Not just you,” Clint confirms, glancing off-screen. Darcy tries not to think about what Steve’s doing right now. Out of sight and out of mind is just about the only thing keeping her head on straight right now in regards to her instinctive revulsion at the idea of hurting or upsetting an omega. 

“I made him Hamburger Helper,” she says, her voice going a little smaller than she wants it to. She keeps talking anyway, because . . . because yeah. Steve at least deserves to hear . . . _something_. “And he had some yogurt and fruit and Pop-Tarts. And there’s, uh, I put a frozen lasagna in the oven for dinner. Uh.” 

“And then you went into a nesting closet with him. And ate a truffle.” Natasha raises her eyebrows, expression mild. Darcy reddens, turning the screen away from the bed. Okay, so it sounds bad. 

“Yeah, I did,” she says anyway. “Well, technically they were his truffles, I bought them in case he came back for this heat. We split one.” 

“Man, the _one time_ I go on the retrieval mission,” Clint says wryly. “Saved us any of those, Lewis?” 

“No. They’re for Bucky,” Darcy retorts, still red-faced. “Get your own, Barton.” 

“Rough,” Sam says, looking amused. 

“Whatever, if you guys were better at this he wouldn’t have _needed_ to sneak in behind your backs and I’d be eating cannoli with Thor right now,” Darcy huffs, making a face at him. “ _And_ bringing some back for the rest of you, but now you’re gonna have to get your own.” 

“Hey now, hold up, you can’t deny a man _cannoli_ just because he got outmaneuvered by the covert expert,” Sam says, holding a hand up in mock-offense. “That’s just cold.” 

“Wow, you had to make the _cold_ remark, look who’s talking,” Darcy snorts. Sam grins and Clint and Natasha both smirk. 

“Darcy,” Steve says, his voice very quiet and very low. The other three immediately fall silent and look up from the tablet, all zeroing in on the same off-screen point as Darcy’s heart sinks. “I’d like to talk to Bucky now.” 

Darcy pauses, glancing towards the closet. Bucky hasn’t moved, but his pheromones flared harshly at Steve’s voice and his face is . . . his face looks . . . 

His face makes her want her taser. 

Her empty fingers twitch against her leg. Bucky stares up at her and shakes his head mutely, eyes big and pained. Darcy swallows, and breathes out. She looks back at the screen. 

“No,” she says. Natasha tilts her head; Sam’s eyebrows go up. 

Steve takes the tablet, and looks down at her. He looks so tired and so sad and so _hurt_. Darcy’s hindbrain is cringing from the sight. 

She breathes in. Out. She holds eye contact with him, and hopes he’ll understand. Hopes he’ll forgive _Bucky_ , at least, if not her. 

“He doesn’t want to,” she tells him, keeping her voice as steady as she can. “And I’m not making him do anything he doesn’t want to. You wanna talk to him when you get here, I’ll ask him again, but if he doesn’t then--then you have to get through me first.” 

Steve keeps looking at her for a long moment, then just nods once and passes the tablet back to the others. Darcy’s knees go weak with guilt and she concentrates really carefully on just . . . not. 

After that Sam says some stuff, and Natasha very pointedly does _not_ say some stuff, and Darcy just nods along and tries not to grimace the whole way through it. Steve looked so . . . Steve’s _been_ so . . . 

They’ll be back in twelve hours. 

The screen blips out, and Darcy breathes out. She does not let her stupid fucking hindbrain obsess over the distressed omega on the other end of that phone call. The distressed omega right _here_ gets precedence. She decided that already. That was a decision that she made. 

So that’s how it’s going to be. 

“Okay,” she says aloud, then looks back to the closet. Talk about a fucking moodkiller. Part of her wants to go back into it anyway, but that part is her stupid-ass hindbrain that didn’t know better than to go into it in the _first_ place. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says quietly, not moving from the corner. Darcy wishes she could do . . . something. Anything. Any useful thing at all. 

“I’m sorry I called you Bucky,” she says finally. She doesn’t really know what else to. “Or . . . I’m not sure if I’m sorry. Do you _really_ want us to call you ‘Asset’?” 

“. . . no,” Bucky mutters, looking down. “Not really.” 

“Do you know what you do want called?” she asks. Bucky bites his lip, shoulders pressing back into the corner. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t--I’m not used to things like that.” 

“Do you not want a name?” Darcy asks after a moment, frowning a little. It’s not like . . . well, she’s worked around weirder stuff. She could keep calling him “omega” or “baby”; Tony’s probably got a million nicknames to cycle through; “hey you” would work in a pinch. “I mean--I get it if you don’t, I can see how that would be . . . a lot, maybe.” 

Being called the name of a man he doesn’t even seem to be sure he _is_ . . . yeah, she can see how that would be a lot of pressure. Even if that man _weren’t_ Captain America’s long-lost war hero BFF. 

“I don’t care,” Bucky says, still looking down. “Bucky’s as good as anything. Better than--” He stops, and doesn’t say anything else. Darcy wonders what the end of that sentence was going to be _(“the asset”? “nothing”? some awful insult or ugly claiming thing?)_ , and has to crush the impulse to ask. She doesn’t think her hindbrain could handle the answer right now. 

Possibly not at all, depending on what it is. 

“Okay,” she says, putting a hand against the doorframe. Bucky keeps staring down--not at his stomach, this time. Darcy’s not sure what he’s looking at. “Can I call you Bucky? Or do you like it better when I call you other stuff?” 

Bucky’s quiet. He’s probably more concerned about Steve coming back than what anyone’s calling him, honestly, but Darcy doesn’t want to push him on it. There’s . . . there’s a lot she doesn’t want to push him on, really, but Steve is probably the thing that worries her the most. 

Steve’s the thing she thinks would be most likely to make him run. 

“I don’t mind when you call me other stuff,” he says after a long moment, and Darcy snaps her attention back to him. “Omega and sweetheart and that stuff. And I liked . . . I liked before, when you called me Jamie.” 

Hindbrain fucking _loves_ that. Darcy exhales. 

“Do you want me to call you Jamie?” she asks carefully. 

“ _You_ can,” Bucky says. He’s still not looking at her. 

“Nobody else?” Darcy asks, still careful. Bucky nods, then picks up the marshmallow pillow again and wraps himself around it. Darcy hesitates, not sure if she should say more or leave him alone, then glances towards the door. The “medley” might need to start cooking by now; she didn’t really look at the instructions that closely. She’s still not even sure if he’s going to be hungry, but . . . 

There is a very limited list of things she can do for Bucky right now. Calling him pet names he likes and feeding him up as much as possible after he hasn’t eaten in four days is not even the _start_ of what she wants to do for him. 

At least it’s _a_ start, though. 

“I’m gonna go check on dinner,” she tells him. “If you want a shower I can go grab you a change of clothes?” 

“I have clothes,” Bucky says, frowning. 

“Um . . . cleaner clothes,” Darcy says, grimacing a little. “I mean, not to be a dick or anything, I’m just assuming you didn’t have much laundromat time on the run and all.” 

“. . . ‘laundromat’,” Bucky repeats like he’s never heard the word in his life. Darcy represses a cringe. Really he’s a lot cleaner than she would’ve expected a homeless fugitive to be managing, but she doesn’t actually know what he’s been doing all this time; for all she knows he’s got an apartment or has been in a hotel or motel. 

“I brought over my bathroom stuff already, you can use whatever you want,” she offers. “And I can do your laundry after dinner, I need to throw in a load anyway.” 

Bucky goes quiet again, looking away. Darcy has to resist the urge to duck back into the closet and pet him, although that would definitely be a terrible idea--the whole thing still smells like him, like him being _hers_ , and she’s pretty sure if she touched him again she’d end up back between his legs with his pheromones overwhelming her and her hindbrain running the show. 

And probably with her _clit_ in him, the way they were going earlier. 

That’s not . . . she would happily give Bucky her knot again, she would fuck him _exactly_ how he asked her to and kiss him anywhere he liked and touch him just how he wants. It’s not like it would be a hardship. It’s not like she doesn’t want it too. 

She’s just not sure he _actually_ wants it. 

“And we need to talk,” she admits. His expression immediately turns wary. “It’s not bad, I swear, I just--there’s some stuff I want you to know, okay? That’s all.” 

“What kind of stuff?” Bucky asks, guarded. Darcy sighs and blows her hair out of her eyes, then gestures at the closet. 

“Well, for starters, that you don’t have to pheromone-bomb me like that,” she tells him. “You don’t have to play up to me to get taken care of. Or . . . whatever you’re thinking. I’m going to take care of you no matter what. Doesn’t matter where you sleep or what you want called or if you never let me touch you again, as long as you need it and _want_ it, I’ll do it.” 

“. . . ‘let you’,” Bucky says the same way he said “laundromat”. 

Darcy thinks _awful_ things. 

“Yes,” she says tightly. “You picked me. I was last alpha standing. That’s--I take that seriously, okay? It meant a lot to me, that you trusted me like that. I want you to keep being able to trust me like that.” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says tonelessly, and Darcy grimaces again, pressing her shoulder against the doorframe. 

“You’re the mother of my _pups_ , Jamie,” she says, because he might understand that. Or at least it might buy her some time until he can understand the idea that she might be concerned about _him_ , anyway. “I’m never going to ditch out on you. Not if I can help it.” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says again. He doesn’t sound any more convinced. Darcy grits her teeth, head ducking. She just wants--she wishes there was something she could say to convince him. She wishes there were something to prove it right _now_. 

She wants him to actually say her name again, and not just “alpha”. 

“I understand if you don’t believe me,” she tells him quietly. “We can talk more later, and maybe that’ll help. And if it doesn’t--well, I’ll understand that too. But I’m gonna do everything I can, and if you can trust me in the meantime . . . I’d appreciate it, if you could trust me.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, his eyes flicking sidelong uncertainly. Darcy stifles three different responses, forcing herself to wait for him to respond. 

“I don’t know if I can,” he says eventually. Darcy flexes her jaw. 

“Okay,” she manages. “Can you _try_ to?” 

“. . . yes,” Bucky replies slowly, eyes flicking back to her. He is gorgeous and sad and she still doesn’t know if he actually wants her to touch him. “I can try to.” 

“Thank you,” Darcy says, because there’s not much else she can say to that. She pushes herself back from the door, forcing herself not to get caught up on the uncertainty in his scent. It’s normal. It’s _fine_. “I’m gonna go check on dinner. The bath stuff’s by the bed if you want it.” 

Bucky nods, ducking his head, and Darcy clenches her jaw again and then makes herself leave without doing anything else. She’s got no idea what she would’ve done anyway. 

She wants to help him. She wants to do right by him. 

She just wishes she knew what that really _was_.


	11. rules of engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnd I interjected a bunch of stuff into the last chapter too so ONE LAST TIME, RAINNE WROTE A FAIR CHUNK OF THIS FIRST DRAFT, LET'S ALL THANK HER FOR HER EFFORTS.

“Vegetable medley” is the fucking _devil_ , Darcy decides morosely, eyeing the limp and watery and kind of gross-looking results of her attempts to cook it. It looked a hell of a lot prettier on the bag, that’s for sure. Hell, it looked prettier when it was still _frozen_. 

Just . . . what the hell? She followed the stupid instructions. She followed the instructions to a fucking _T_ , or tee, or . . . whatever, she doesn’t even know how that expression actually goes. It’s pretty old-fashioned, maybe Bucky does. 

Probably Bucky does not. 

Ugh. 

Darcy tries a bite of medley, regrets _everything_ , and scrapes the whole mess into the trash. Fuck it, they’ll eat fruit. Fruit’s a thing. Probably a thing. She wonders if there’s garlic bread in the freezer. She checks and no, no there is not. Infinite amount of vegetable medley, though, _goddammit Tony_. Seriously, wasn't his dad Italian? She's probably rolling over in her grave, the poor woman. 

Rich people vegetables, Darcy seethes to herself. She doesn’t actually want to give Bucky fruit because the fruit is all in the fridge or freezer and after the way he looked when she put that Hamburger Helper in front of him and he realized it was _hot_ . . . yeah. She definitely does not want to serve him anything cold. 

Well. Thank god for microwaves and breaded green bean fries, she guesses. 

Bucky comes out of the bedroom while she’s wrestling with the green bean fries. He’s totally silent and gives off basically zero presence, but Darcy smells vanilla-sweet soap and the ghost of cinnamon pheromones, and when she looks up he’s sitting quietly on the other side of the counter dressed in the sweats and T-shirt she’d ganked from Thor. He’s barefoot, which is . . . super fucking distracting, honestly, and his metal arm looks like he stopped to polish it. 

She wonders if he actually did, and what he used. She’s pretty sure just soap couldn’t get a shine like that, but it’s not like she knows anything about whatever alloy it’s made out of or any sealants that might be on it. 

She wonders why he bothered, if he did. 

“Um,” Darcy starts. Bucky straightens in his seat and looks over at her, and she forgets what she was about to say because--“Oh,” she says stupidly, staring at his stomach. If she hadn’t--if she hadn’t seen him shirtless before, she probably wouldn’t be able to tell, but without all the layers . . . 

It looks like he’s showing, without all the layers muddying everything up. 

Hindbrain is about to fucking _lose_ it. 

“Alpha?” Bucky says uncertainly, and she exhales. 

“Sorry. Uh--sorry,” she manages. “It just looks like . . . are you showing already?” 

“I think--a little?” Bucky shifts uncomfortably, bringing his biological hand up over his stomach and pressing his shirt to it. He pauses, then pulls it up and looks down at himself. “Maybe.” 

Definitely, Darcy thinks. She spent a lot of time both touching and staring at that stomach, okay, she can tell. He’s sure as hell not been eating well enough for it to be ordinary weight gain. 

“You’re, uh--you look pretty big compared to last I saw you,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek. “I mean, you were already pretty thick but . . . god please don’t take that the wrong way, I don’t mean you’re _fat_ or anything, obviously you’re not fat.” 

“I’m _supposed_ to be fat,” Bucky says, tightening his grip on his shirt with a worried expression. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Darcy says, wincing. Okay, she just needs to . . . she definitely needs to watch her phrasing here, what _idiot_ part of her instincts decided to say literally any of that? Probably one that watched way too many sitcoms as a kid when it should’ve been paying a lot more attention to actual real-life people. “I just meant you were pretty big, and now you’re bigger. I--it’s probably harder for you to tell, I guess, but since I haven’t seen you in a while it’s kind of obvious.” 

“That means it’s a few,” Bucky says, expression uncertain. Darcy frowns. 

“A few what?” she asks; his eyes flick down to his stomach again. 

“Uh . . . pups,” he says carefully. “If I’m . . . if I’m showing already, then . . .” 

“Oh,” Darcy realizes, flashing back to her teenage years. Her mom had started showing before she’d even missed a heat, she remembers. “You think it’s a big litter?” 

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, looking unnerved. “It’s probably not--not a single.” 

“Yeah," Darcy says. She wasn’t expecting just one pup anyway; there’s a disproportionate amount of only children in the Avengers, but that’s really not SOP. Most people have littermates, and most litters have between two and four pups in them. Something about saying that out _loud_ , though . . . “Does that . . . uh, does that sound okay to you?” 

“Barnes grew up the oldest child of a litter of four,” Bucky says, sounding more like he’s reciting something than like he’s actually answering her. Darcy pauses, then just--files that, and keeps going. 

“I was the third of four in my litter,” she tells him. “Then my parents had a second litter of three. My littermates--uh, I’ve got two litter-brothers and a litter-sister, and the brothers are both mated. The alpha and his mate already have two litters of three and the omega and his had a litter of four last year. So, you know, I wouldn’t be shocked if we had three or four too.” 

“Three or four.” Bucky looks . . . distracted. Darcy watches him for a moment, waiting for . . . something. He doesn’t say anything else, though, and his expression doesn’t change. 

“Well. We’ve got enough bassinets if we do, at least,” she says finally, not sure what else to say. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough either way.” 

Bucky doesn’t look any less distracted, but the timer goes off and Darcy has to grab the lasagna out of the oven and leave it to sit for ten minutes because . . . well, she’s not actually sure, but the instructions say to so yeah, she’s gonna. The vegetable medley was already a big enough disaster, okay, she is _not_ fucking up the entrée. 

She puts the green bean fries in the microwave and tracks down the plates and silverware, setting places for them at the counter. The dining room table is a little too intimidating right now, at least for her. The counter’s a little more intimate, too, and she’s hoping it’ll make it easier to talk. 

Because they really do need to talk. 

The microwave dings. Darcy dumps the green bean fries into a serving bowl with some tongs and puts them on the counter, then brings the lasagna over too. She cuts a Steve-sized serving for Bucky and a more normal human-sized one for herself, plants both on their respective plates, and then sits down and quietly panics. She really doesn’t have the room to do that for real right now, unfortunately, but--

“Drinks!” she blurts, shoving herself up again; Bucky startles, then stares at her in confusion. “Um--sorry. Did you want something to drink, I mean. Like, there’s water and milk and weird fancy rich-people fruit juices and . . . uh. Stuff.” 

“. . . no thank you, alpha,” Bucky tries carefully, expression guarded. Darcy feels like an idiot and retreats to the fridge in favor of regaining some dignity. She grabs the first thing she sees, which turns out to be one of the weird fruit juices--Yubari melon, which is just . . . she has literally never even heard of this, what kind of person even _stocks_ melon juice? Is that even a thing or is Tony just fucking crazy? 

Is she fishing for excuses to not have to start this conversation? 

Darcy groans to herself, grabs another can of juice just in case Bucky changes his mind, then brings them both over to the counter. If he doesn’t want it, she’ll drink it. She sits down and only then realizes he hasn’t touched his plate. 

She really, _really_ wants to not assume the worst, but . . . 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . you know you can eat without waiting for permission, right?” she tells him carefully. “Or . . . me.” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says as his eyes flick away, pretty obviously lying. He still hasn’t called her by name again yet. She’s starting to wonder if “alpha” is some kind of replacement for “ma’am”, the way he’s been talking to her. 

Yeah. They definitely need to have this conversation. 

“You can,” Darcy says, very deliberately taking a green bean fry and popping it into her mouth. She’s not sure, but if it might make it easier for him . . . “Like, you can eat any food in here, it’s all just as much yours as it is mine. I mean, you should tell J.A.R.V.I.S. if you eat the last of something so he can put it on the next grocery order, but that’s it.” 

“Yes, alpha.” Bucky stares at the green beans. Darcy resists the urge to dump some of them on his plate, but only barely. Her hindbrain is whining like a kicked dog over him not eating the food she’s provided, but her hindbrain can suck a _knot_. 

“Are you hungry?” she tries. 

“. . . I think so,” he says. Darcy grips her fork tightly and takes a slow breath. 

“Okay,” she says. “Just--take a bite, please? And check?” 

“Yes, alpha,” Bucky says, picking up the fork. She may actually end up hating that phrase by the end of this, Darcy thinks. Bucky cuts a corner off the lasagna gingerly, a little too awkward with the fork, and she concentrates on not snarling at people who aren’t even here to get tased. 

Bucky takes the bite, expression turning considering for a long moment, and Darcy pretends to care about her own dinner so he can work it out. Judging by how fast he tucks back in, she’s pretty sure the mental coin toss came up “hungry”. 

“There’s more if you want,” she says when he’s made it through the piece in record time and stopped after practically licking the plate, the look on his face gone a little strange. 

“. . . there’s more,” Bucky repeats, eyes flicking guardedly towards the lasagna. Darcy takes a vengeful bite of green beans, then cuts him another two slices and dumps them on his plate along with a couple scoops of the green bean fries. She doesn’t want to treat him like a kid or assume he can’t handle shit for himself, but if she doesn’t feed him right now she _may_ actually scream. 

“There’s more,” she repeats firmly. “So. I’m guessing HYDRA had some fucked-up rules about food?” 

“I . . . yeah,” Bucky says, staring at his overfull plate like he’s never seen anything like it. “There were rules.” 

“You know those are bullshit, right?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” he says, but looks uncomfortable. Darcy takes a minute to figure it out, but--

“Do you know which rules are theirs and which ones are normal?” she asks carefully. Bucky grimaces, then shakes his head. Darcy sees red, but--it’s fine. She can handle this. “Okay. Give me a second,” she says, then gets up and heads back to the office to dig up a pen and paper. Tony being Tony, there aren’t any, but there’s a tablet with a stylus so fuck it, whatever. 

She brings the tablet back to the kitchen, booting it up as she goes, and is entirely unsurprised to find it not only already set up but also linked to all her profiles and files, Jesus _Christ_ , Stark, get a _puppy_. Bucky’s plate is already empty again, and from the look of it Darcy thinks he might’ve _actually_ licked it this time. 

God, this is testing her faith in humanity. And she never had an overwhelming amount of that anyway. 

“Okay,” she says, setting down the tablet to cut another serving of lasagna for Bucky and spoon more green beans onto his plate. “So I was thinking we could make a list, and those could be our rules. Like, not just food rules, if there’s anything else you’re not sure about we can cover that too. It might make it easier to keep everything straight.” 

“Rules,” Bucky repeats, a brief flash of misery passing over his face and making her nauseous to see. 

“We don’t have to,” Darcy says as she sits back down. “I just thought it might help.” 

“Maybe,” he mutters, looking away. “We could try . . . we could try rules.” 

“Okay.” Darcy watches him carefully, picking up the tablet and opening the notepad app. “Want to start with food?” He nods mutely, and she writes _the food in our suite is for both of us_ ; he watches her do it, and she glances up when she’s done. 

“The food in our suite is for both of us,” he says. There’s a flatness to his tone Darcy really doesn’t like, but . . . if it helps, she’s not complaining. 

_if you eat the last of something, tell J.A.R.V.I.S. so he can replace it,_ she writes. It’s simple stuff, but simple seems like the best place to start. 

“If y--if I eat the last of something, I have to tell J.A.R.V.I.S. so he can replace it,” Bucky repeats, response a little more awkward with the pause to rephrase but no less flat. 

“Yeah,” Darcy says, glancing up to him again. “Okay, so, uh . . . do you want to tell me some of the rules you’re _sure_ were HYDRA and go from there?” 

“Nothing sweet,” he says, eyes flicking away for the umpteenth time. Answer enough, Darcy guesses. She kind of wants to laugh and kind of wants to _cry_ , hearing that. 

“Well we blew _that_ one straight to hell,” she mutters wryly, writing _all the sweet stuff you want, seriously_. 

“All the . . . all the sweet stuff I . . . I want,” Bucky reads off, tone turning uncertain. Darcy kind of hates the part of herself that prefers it to the flatness. “Seriously.” 

“Seriously,” she agrees firmly. “What else?” 

“No eating without permission,” Bucky says. 

_eat when you’re hungry,_ Darcy writes. 

“Eat when I’m--hungry,” Bucky repeats, voice dropping into a murmur for a moment before he goes on without prompting. “Eat whatever I’m given.” 

Darcy pauses at that, frowning for a second and wondering how that was even a rule HYDRA felt like they needed to give a guy they apparently made a habit of withholding food from. Then she comes up with a couple of possibilities and immediately wishes she hadn’t. 

_if you don’t want to eat it, you don’t have to,_ she writes very slowly, lips pressed together tight. Bucky rephrases and repeats, again, and then hesitates in a way that makes nauseous dread pool in Darcy’s stomach. 

“Food is--a privilege,” he says, voice stilted. He’s repeated _all_ these phrases, Darcy realizes slowly, fingers tightening on the stylus. That’s why he’s reading off what she writes like that; they told him all this poisonous, ugly shit and made him say it until he believed it. 

And the “privilege” line isn’t the one he was going to say. She can tell just from the look on his face. 

_food is A RIGHT,_ Darcy writes, underlining it a couple times because she needs the moment to deal with the fact there is actually something worse than this coming. Bucky repeats it lowly, his voice weak. It’s a good thing, Darcy tells herself. The flatness, that was how he coped before, right? If he’s not flat, if he’s not repressing every little thing he feels, that’s _good_. 

God, she hopes it’s good. 

“Anything else?” she asks after he’s been silent twice as long as he was the last turn, taking a second to push her glasses up as she glances at him again. Bucky’s expression flashes back to miserable and Darcy’s gut clutches up, and she opens her mouth to say _never mind_ but--

“Good bitches get treats,” Bucky says, flat as the goddamned floor. 

Darcy _snarls_. The stylus cracks in her fingers, and Bucky goes dead-still on the other side of the counter. She can’t make herself put her teeth away, and her fingers feel like they might just cramp around the mangled stylus. Bucky shrinks in on himself, head ducking until he’s looking up at her, curled forward into a submissive posture as his pheromones turn cloying and pleading, and Darcy feels sick at the sight. It’s probably as much a reflex as her snarling was. 

“Don’t,” she forces out. “It’s not-- _don’t_.” 

She’s not one of them, she’s not that kind of alpha, she’s not one of those fucking _monsters_ who put a choke chain on an omega, on _anyone_ , who made him fucking--made him fucking scrape and bow and _suffer_ \--

She drops the stylus and presses the heels of her hands to her temples and _breathes_ , in and out and in out and calm, slow, steady, easy. Just--breathes. In and out, calm and slow, steady and easy. 

Bucky whines. Darcy takes one look at him and gets a vivid, horrible flash of him back in the fabrication lab and an even worse one of how those HYDRA fucks back in the alley had probably been planning to “take care” of him. 

She snarls again. She can’t _help_ it. She goes tense all over, hands fisting in her own hair, and she knows her pheromones must be going fucking crazy right now, she _knows_. She knows, but her hindbrain is strung out on her omega’s hurt little noises and pleading pheromones and the pain and wariness and memories of fear that she can smell in them, on knowing how much he’s been hurt and how little she can actually _do_ about it. On knowing she’ll _never_ actually know how much he’s been hurt, even if Bucky tells her himself, because even he _doesn’t fucking remember_. 

He’s not even her omega. 

“Alpha--” Bucky starts slowly. 

“Don’t _call_ me that!” Darcy shrieks. He recoils, and she flinches back and fucking _despises_ herself. “I’m not--I don’t--I’m sorry, I’m sorry, _fuck_. Call me whatever you want, it’s not . . . I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . . it’s not your fault, it’s not because of you, I swear, I just need . . . a minute, I’ll be okay, just I need a minute.” 

She is not going to be okay in a minute. 

Bucky whines again, softer and quieter and suddenly around the counter and in close against her. Darcy didn’t even notice him moving, but, well, blackout rage will do that for you, won’t it, she thinks with morbid not-even-close-to humor, staring down at him. He’s on his knees, which is something she can’t let herself process if she ever wants to calm down again. He leans in and gives her side a kittenish little nuzzle, then presses his face in against her ribs. 

Fucking textbook alpha-soothing behavior. If it was Ian doing this after a fight she’d be hard as a rock right now and forgiving just about anything. Of course, if it were Ian, it would’ve actually been a _fight_ and not just her yelling at some poor blameless bastard whose head is barely screwed on, and there might’ve actually been something that needed forgiven. 

God, what is she even doing? This isn’t about her. This isn’t even a little about her. Bucky’s on the fucking _floor_. Bucky’s on the floor trying to placate the alpha that he thinks his sanctuary and his pups’ _lives_ depends on. 

And she’s the one who can’t keep a lid on her damn pheromones. 

Darcy picks up the stylus again, fingers trembling with adrenaline. It’s . . . semi-intact, at least. It works when she puts it on the tablet, so whatever, who cares past that. 

She writes the only rule she can in response to what he just said, gritting her teeth and trying to force herself to calm down the entire time. Bucky stays on the floor beside her, still nuzzled in close in a way she’d love under other circumstances and hates right now. She rumbles low in her chest to get his attention, then tilts the tablet so he can read it. He goes still against her side. 

Darcy . . . Darcy waits, because there’s no other option. 

“You do not . . .” Bucky trails off, visibly struggles for a moment, and then starts over: “ _I_ do not . . . I do not have to have sex with anyone for any reason unless you . . . unless _I_ . . .” 

He stops, expression twisting strangely, and Darcy forces herself to stay silent and her own face to stay neutral. It almost works. She thinks it almost works. 

“Unless I want to,” Bucky blurts out in a rush, then immediately tenses up, visibly shaken. Darcy breathes out, setting down the tablet. 

“Right,” she says. 

“Except you,” Bucky says, looking a little panicked in a way that just might kill her. “Right? I have to--I mean--” 

“Not even me,” Darcy cuts in, shaking her head roughly and trying really, really hard not to think about earlier in the closet. “Fuck, Jamie, _especially_ not me. Not to earn something or get taken care of or get fed or _anything_. Not even if you’re in heat.” 

“But . . . if it’s my heat, you won’t . . .” He trails off, hesitant, and Darcy exhales roughly again. 

“Won’t be able to help myself?” she guesses, remembering their first meeting. “Yeah, you said that last time. I _promise_ you, man, I can and I goddamn well will. If you want to ride your next heat or the heat after or a heat five years from now or literally _any_ heat you ever have _again_ out either alone or with somebody not me, I’ll make sure you’ve got everything you need and clear the hell out for as long as you want. That’s got nothing to do with whether you’re allowed to stay here or not.” 

“But,” Bucky starts uncomfortably, and then doesn’t say anything else. He’s still kneeling, which isn’t helping Darcy focus, but she’s not going to interrupt the strange look on his face, some naked cross between guilt and frustration and fear. She wants so bad to smooth it away, but she doesn’t know how and her instincts are useless in this situation; her stupid goddamn _instincts_ would have her pushing his head down or dragging him up to bend over the table or biting his neck ‘til he fucking _cried_ , the useless, brutal things they are. Like that’s some kind of comfort, like that would really make him feel _safe_ like it might for another omega, after all the other shit. 

She wants to touch him. She wants to put a hand on his neck and press her nails in like he liked in heat, but she has no way of knowing if that’s something he’d want when he’s out of it. 

No way of knowing if he really wants to be touched by her at all, and doesn’t just think he has to let her. 

“Are you still hungry?” she asks finally, not wanting to just leave him there. If Bucky were Ian or Johnny or literally any other omega she’s dated or partnered, she’d be offering him a bite off her own plate. This isn’t either of those things, though, and god knows what that’d invoke for him. She doesn’t want to give him fucked-up signals, especially not right now. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky replies quietly, not looking up at her. Darcy wants to pet his head; brush his hair back out of his face and kiss his forehead and cheeks and mouth. She wants to hand-feed him all the best bits, draw a hot and relaxing bath full of scented oils and bubbles for him, lay him back in bed and eat him out slow and sweet until he loses track of how many times he’s come and the stress lines around his eyes disappear. 

She wants to do what he _actually_ wants, whatever that is. 

“Okay,” she says, pushing herself up out of her seat. She’s barely eaten half her meal, but her appetite’s pretty much shot at this point. “Try eating, please? I’m gonna put the leftovers away and do the dishes.” 

“Yes,” Bucky says, the end of the word breaking off a little too suddenly. Darcy can _hear_ where he didn’t say “alpha”. 

“I mean it,” she tells him as she picks up her plate, looking down at him where he’s still kneeling like . . . like she doesn’t want him to be, basically. “You can call me whatever you want.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Darcy doesn’t push it. 

She packages up everything that isn’t on Bucky’s plate and puts it all in the fridge, throws out the disposable pan the lasagna came in, and then starts scrubbing her plate and silverware and the serving bowl and pan. She doesn’t look back at Bucky, and he doesn’t make any sound she can hear over the running water. 

Ignoring him’s maybe not the best idea, but she doesn’t think the privacy’ll hurt. Or she hopes it won’t. Or--

Forget it. 

Darcy dries the dishes and puts them away and wipes out the sink with a dishtowel that probably cost more than her last pair of glasses, then turns back around just in time to nearly collide with Bucky, who’s standing behind her with his empty plate. They both startle, and she grabs the plate when he fumbles it. 

His biological hand is warm under hers. The metal one’s closer to room temperature. 

He smells sweet. 

They’re both still for a moment, then Darcy takes the plate and turns around to scrub it clean and dirty up the sink all over again. Bucky’s silent behind her, and she repeats the ritual of drying and putting the plate and fork away and wiping out the sink again, and when she turns back around he’s barely moved. 

“I need to unpack,” she says. It’s a stupid and pointless thing to say; it’s a stupid and pointless thing to _do_ , at this point. 

But it’s something. 

Bucky nods, and Darcy dries her hands on her jeans, tucks the tablet and damaged stylus under her arm, and heads back to the master bedroom. He follows her and immediately tucks himself away in his nest, and she sets the tablet on the nightstand and starts unpacking her haphazard collection of boxes. It’s something to do, anyway. 

Also, she really wants to sleep before Steve gets here and hates her. Just . . . she is going to need that sleep, is all. Having a bunch of boxes lying around isn’t going to make that any easier. 

God, she’s only got ten hours to figure out how to convince Captain _fucking_ America she’s not doing anything shitty to his best friend and that she’s just trying to do her best by the guy by not ‘fessing up to having seen him and not making him talk to Steve. 

Yeah, she’s definitely spending that time asleep. There’s not shit she can actually do besides pray for super-soldier mercy. 

Her life would’ve been so much easier if Bucky weren’t so good at covert ops, she thinks resignedly as she opens a new box. 

“Where have you been all this time, anyway?” she asks a few boxes in, glancing towards the closet. Bucky’s mostly hidden by the doorway, but she can see him, and he can see the other door and windows. “Steve and Sam never even got _close_ to you.” 

“They were close to me,” Bucky says. He’s looking at the door, not her. Darcy frowns, shaking out a shirt to hang up. 

“When?” she asks. Steve’d said they hadn’t scented him even once, and she can’t see why he would’ve lied about that. Bucky must’ve pulled off one hell of an escape. 

“The whole time.” Bucky’s eyes flick up again, and he tenses a little at seeing her startled expression. 

“Uh--you’re gonna have to clarify that one for me, Jamie,” she says, struggling to clear her face. What the hell? “Like . . . they weren’t even following decent leads half the time, just _looking_ for leads.” 

“I know,” Bucky says, still tense. “I was following them.” 

Darcy pauses, then revaluates the conversation and maybe also some of her life choices. He just--for a fucking year? The whole _time_? 

“Why?” she asks eventually, not really knowing where else to go with that. Not really knowing what to _think_ of that. 

“I knew any place they’d been would be safe,” Bucky replies. 

“Are you kidding me?” Darcy demands in disbelief as she drops the shirt altogether to stare at him, her hindbrain instinctively horrified. “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me, Jesus Christ, Jamie, they ran through a laundry list of half the most dangerous places on the freaking _planet_ looking for you! That is like the opposite of safe!” 

Bucky frowns, his head ducking. Darcy tries not to wince. Okay, she didn’t just alpha-voice him or anything, but maybe that was a little too . . . shouty. Or something. 

“No,” he says. “That was safe.” 

“Because they were close by in case you needed backup?” she asks carefully, trying to keep her pheromones down. 

“Because any place they’d gotten to first wouldn’t have anyone HYDRA left in it,” he replies, shaking his head. Darcy blinks. That’s . . . not exactly what she was expecting to hear. 

It occurs to her that Bucky may have actually spent the past year of his life doing literally _nothing_ but hiding. Everyone’s always talked like he was clearing out HYDRA safehouses or looking for bloody revenge in Russia, but that wasn’t actually everyone talking, that was everyone _assuming_. Which she knew, obviously, because if they’d had actual proof of what he was doing all that time they would’ve had a _trail_ to follow, but . . . 

But. 

“You’ve just been hiding,” she says slowly. She can’t imagine how miserable his heats were; how _lonely_ he must’ve been. Well--some people can go a few cycles without getting the side effects, she knows. Maybe Bucky’s like that. 

She _hopes_ Bucky’s like that. 

“Yes,” Bucky says, shifting back a little further into the closet. “I’m not--they thought I was doing stuff, right? Recon or hunting down HYDRA cells or . . . or something.” 

“Was kind of the general consensus, yeah,” Darcy agrees carefully. 

“Yeah.” Bucky’s mouth twists. It looks like a smirk, but there’s no humor or amusement in it. “I told you. I’m not the guy he thinks I am.” 

“You look like him,” Darcy says, knowing she’s already said it but not sure she’s got anything better. They’re really not anywhere near where she expected the conversation to go. Bucky’s mouth twists again. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I was _never_ that guy. I didn’t even--I didn’t even _enlist_. I don’t remember very much but I . . . I remember I didn’t enlist. But I told him that I did. And then after he got us out of the facility I was going to take the transfer and go back to the States, get the hell away from the front and get a life again. I only stayed because . . . I only . . .” 

“Oh,” Darcy says blankly. Bucky looks bitter. 

“I’m not that guy on the museum wall,” he says. “I didn’t ‘give’ my life for my country, my country fucking _took_ it. I didn’t want to be there. I don’t want to be there now.” 

“Okay. What _do_ you want?” Darcy asks, her higher thought processes gently hazed over with white noise. There’s not much else she could ask, under the circumstances. 

“Not to fight anymore,” Bucky says, his eyes flicking down as he lifts a hand to curl over his stomach. “I want . . . I want to not fight anymore. I know that’s--I know I _have_ to--” 

“‘Have to’,” Darcy echoes, voice blank. Bucky nods roughly. 

“I’ll be a good asset--I mean--I can do the work. I’ll get back into form as soon as possible after the . . . after,” he says, own voice gone a little pleading and hand fisting in the front of his shirt. “I heal fast, it won’t take long. I’ll need to re-condition, but I’ll be mission-ready in a month.” 

“Okay, well. That sounds like a terrible plan,” Darcy says carefully, and Bucky immediately looks alarmed. Darcy represses a frustrated noise and grabs the tablet and what’s left of the stylus up again. She writes a new rule, _you do not have to fight for any reason unless you want to_ , then holds it up pointedly. 

Bucky stares at the screen, then her face. She doesn’t ask if he can read it; he’s a super-soldier sniper, of _course_ he can read it. 

“That’s not true,” he says. Darcy’s mouth thins. Like--she’s really glad he can contradict her, don’t get her wrong, but this is not a particularly reassuring thing for him to be contradicting her _on_. 

“It really is,” she says. “Like, if you want to I’m sure the team’d take you, you could get them their ex-assassin hat trick, but you don’t _have_ to. Definitely not five minutes after you go through _childbirth_ do you have to, like, give yourself a break there.” 

“That’s not right,” Bucky says, shaking his head. 

“According to who?” Darcy asks, frustrated. “ _Jesus_ , Jamie. You don’t need to fight any more than you need to put out, okay? It’s the same freaking thing, nobody’s gonna force you to do stuff you don’t want to. The Avengers aren’t HYDRA or the government or even _SHIELD_ anymore, it’s literally just a bunch of crazy people who are only _slightly_ more useful than than they are dangerou--” 

She stops. Listens to what she’s actually saying. Bucky’s still staring at her, visibly struggling for a response. 

“Useful,” she repeats slowly. 

“I _am_ ,” Bucky says, immediately jumping on the word. Because that’s what he meant, isn’t it. That’s what he’s _been_ meaning. 

“You don’t--” Darcy starts, then stops herself, raking a hand back through her hair on a rough exhalation. Is he even gonna hear her if she tells him he doesn’t have to fit some probably-HYDRA standard of _“useful”_ to get to stay here? Steve would literally eat his shield before he let them kick Bucky out, no matter what, and that’s assuming any of the others would be sociopath enough to throw out a pregnant ex-POW omega anyway. Hell, even if any of them _were_ , Thor would still take him to Asgard at the drop of a hat.

Bucky doesn’t know that, she reminds herself. He’s got no way to know that. 

How does she say it so he _will_? 

. . . she’s going to hate herself for this in the morning, isn’t she. 

“Omega,” Darcy says firmly, letting just a touch of alpha influence into her voice. Not too much, just--she’s partnered him, she’s bred him, she’s been _there_ for him, at least as much as he let her. She just wants to remind him he’s safe with her. “You’re already useful. Who else is going to take care of the pups?” 

“I mean--after they’re born,” Bucky says, frowning. He looks confused, which is--well. Confusing, honestly. “I wouldn’t go out in the field while they might get hurt.” 

“I meant that too,” Darcy tells him, not letting herself frown too. “Who else is going to do it?” 

“But I’m . . .” Bucky trails off, looking even more confused. She doesn’t even know what part of that’s tripping him up, but it’s still pretty painful to watch. “You want me to take care of them?” 

“Who else?” Darcy repeats, definitely _not_ thinking about anything Steve told her about what Bucky wanted after the war. He looks so fucking lost, like . . . like what, what is he even _thinking_ right now? 

“But I’m--what I am,” Bucky says lowly, sinking back deeper into the closet. Darcy swears the whole damn thing gets darker. “I don’t take care of people.” 

“If you say so, but honestly?” she asks, watching him carefully. “I’d rather our kids be raised by a fucking terrifying political assassin/human tank than, like, whatever ex-SHIELD nannies Tony’d hire otherwise. And personally I have _very_ little childcare experience, okay, and even less ‘maiming bad guys’ experience. They’d be way safer with you.” 

“‘Our kids’,” Bucky repeats, tone a little distant. 

“. . . yeah,” Darcy replies, own voice still careful. She picks up another shirt and pretends to be super-invested in getting it on the hanger that, knowing Tony, is probably made of something super-expensive and rare as hell. “I--Jamie. Omega. I’m not gonna _take_ them from you. You get that, right?” 

“I’m an asset,” Bucky says in that flat, dead tone that makes Darcy’s hackles rise and her fingers twitch for her taser. “I’m a murderer. Not even a soldier anymore.” 

Darcy exhales, then abandons the shirt and hanger and remaining boxes and heads over to crouch at the mouth of the closet. Bucky looks at her silently and doesn’t move either away or in closer. She tries to pick the right words, tries to be gentle like she’s so terrible about being, but she doesn’t think it’s going to come out right. 

She tries, because that’s all they’ve got right now. 

“You’re the mother of my pups,” she reminds him, letting a trace of alpha stay in her voice but repressing the urge to reach out and touch his stomach to make her point. She wants to, just--she doesn’t want to take the liberty. Especially not today. “And you came in from the cold when that is so obviously the _last_ thing you ever wanted to do.” 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Bucky says as he tenses his shoulders, teeth gritting painfully. 

“It really does,” Darcy replies, shaking her head. “If you were really just an asset, you’d have wanted the abortion to keep yourself in form, not to protect someone else from the kind of shit that happened to you. And you _definitely_ wouldn’t have decided to keep them when we gave you the option.” 

“There’s other reasons an asset would keep a pregnancy,” Bucky says, teeth still gritted. He looks bleak and hurt, and Darcy doesn’t really want to know what reasons he’s thinking of. It’s not the point, anyway. 

“Maybe,” she says. “But those reasons don’t matter, because they’re not yours.” 

“You don’t _know_ that,” Bucky snaps, tensing. 

Darcy looks at him half-hidden in the closet and half-curled around his curved stomach, a full-grown omega and thoroughly blooded killer and not-quite-soldier trying to make himself look small and not worth targeting instead of big and dangerous like he actually is. Who licked her kittenishly when he was in heat and tried to pheromone-bomb her in this same closet when he wasn’t and doesn’t want to talk to Steve and _does_ want the pups inside him. 

“I really, really think I do,” she says. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, and he’s not looking at her anymore. Darcy wonders if this is just too much or not enough or . . . or she doesn’t know, really. She just knows it’s not _right_. 

She wishes he’d say something. Or that she could do something. Or . . . 

Darcy exhales, dragging her fingers through her hair. Bucky continues not to look at her. She still wants to do something, but she’s done everything she can think of; at this point she’s out of ideas. 

“I’m going to get some sleep before Steve and the others get back,” she tells him finally, because maybe some time to let it all sink in will help Bucky, and also because she’s just--she’s _tired_. Way more tired than she should be. “If you get hungry again there’s plenty in the fridge, and--like, if you wanna sleep too or need something or whatever, just help yourself, okay?” 

Bucky nods silently in response, and Darcy takes a deep breath and then lets it go. She’s done everything she can, she reminds herself, at least for right now. She stands up and heads back to the bed, taking off her glasses and dragging the stupidly nice blankets down so she can squirm in under the covers, and then curls up and forces her brain to _shut_ up. 

Her _hind_ brain, unfortunately, is still obsessing over the scent of sweetly bred omega in her den. 

That . . . that is really hard to ignore. 

So instead she just closes her eyes, drags the blankets over her head, and doesn’t make herself.


	12. ETA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently commissioned [annasketches](http://annasketches.tumblr.com/) for an illustration of a scene you guys might be interested in, which for the record came out [freaking gorgeous](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/post/121075649883/annasketches-lastest-commission-for-the-super).

“Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says politely. Darcy mostly wakes up, then squeezes her eyes shut tighter and hides her head under the pillow with a protesting groan. Someone makes a quiet noise in response right next to her, and she bolts upright in alarm, heart jackhammering in her chest and teeth instinctively baring to--

Oh, right, she remembers as she stares down half-blindly at Bucky, who’s lying on top of the sheets in the other half of the bed and looking up at her with a startled expression. 

Well. It’s not like she thought he was gonna sleep in the closet, she guesses, fumbling for her glasses. 

Although honestly, the way he’s been acting? She kind of _did_. She just hadn’t wanted to push it and give him the wrong idea. Again. 

. . . Thor’s shirt is really thin and really does not hide much, Darcy can’t help noticing as she slips her glasses on and her eyes refocus to track the long length of Bucky’s body stretched out next to hers. He’s still wearing the same soft white T-shirt and loose cotton pants, the line of his hip bared where they’re both disarrayed, where the new curve of his stomach melts into and softens it. She remembers how that line had been the perfect tight place to cradle her clit, before, and how she’d rocked down against him and he’d made soft little noises and gone passive and pleading and spread his--

“Ngh,” she manages stupidly, vaguely aware that she is a horrible person. Also her hair is every freaking which way and she kind of needs a shower and her eyes are all gummy and sleep-gross in front of one of the hottest omegas she’s ever met in her life, much less had in her _bed_. 

Yeah, that sounds about right. 

“Alpha,” Bucky says quietly in a tone of voice that just might kill her, looking passive and maybe-pleading and--

“Good morning, Ms. Lewis. The quinjet’s ETA is forty-five minutes,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says. Darcy makes a strangled, panicked noise and throws herself out of the bed. 

“Quinjet! Yes! Right! Yes. I remembered that. I’m, uh--gonna,” she starts awkwardly, hands gesturing uselessly, then gives up and flees to the bathroom. Bucky doesn’t follow her, and she doesn’t glance back to see his reaction. 

Honestly, it feels unfair to. He’s just so _bad_ at schooling his face. 

Darcy runs the shower hot and rifles through the box of bathroom supplies in search of shampoo. Bucky, she can’t help re-noticing, used the leftover heat bath products when he was in here. She doesn’t follow his example, mostly because A) she has some sense of self-preservation, and B) well, they’re his, aren’t they? Or they’re sort of his. 

She’s not sure what Bucky’s personal boundaries are like. She might as well act like he has some, though. If nothing else, maybe it’ll help him get used to the idea. And yeah, it’s only soap and shampoo, but that’s beside the point: training wheels are training wheels. 

Darcy turns the water on and lets it run to heat up as she shucks off her clothes and dumps them on the floor. She absently wonders what Bucky did with his--she’ll have to ask later, she’s not sure he wouldn’t just assume he needed to wash them in the tub or hide anything dirty somewhere weird or God knows, really. 

She kind of feels like an asshole thinking that, though, since it’s just as likely they’re in the hamper or the washing machine. It’s not like he turned up some kind of wreck--well, _emotionally_ , yes, and he’d needed to brush his hair and was a few days behind shaving, but both times she’d met him he’d clearly been getting by in one way or another. Underfed and skittish and tired as hell, but getting by. 

Also, you know. He’s _alive_ right now. That’s a lot better than just “getting by”, under the circumstances. 

Darcy leaves her glasses on the counter and gets in the shower. She makes it fast, scrubbing up quick and washing her hair before she’s even fully rinsed off her skin, then cutting off the water and leaning out to grab a towel off the rack. She definitely does not use the vanilla soaps at any point in the process. 

Normally she’d take a lot longer in the shower, especially when feeling this awkward around her shiny new roommate, but she needs to look like a human being when Steve shows up. She’s already going to be a disaster dealing with denying a distressed omega the one thing he wants most in the whole damn world--maybe the one thing he’s wanted most in the past _century_ , for all she knows--but she can at least have her hair dry and put on some lipstick and just--look presentable, basically. 

Because that’s totally relevant in this situation. 

Darcy sits down on the lid of the toilet with dripping skin and hair and buries her face in her towel and _does not_ cry, but really wants to. Bucky would almost definitely hear her, though. Because yeah, super-soldier senses, of course he’d hear her. And that’s to say nothing of whatever pheromones she’d probably end up giving off; even someone completely unenhanced would be able to smell _that_. 

Hell, she’ll be lucky if he can’t _already_ smell something. 

Darcy breathes in. Darcy breathes out. Darcy is fucking sick of fucking obsessing over her _fucking breathing_. She rubs the towel back over her hair and up her arms and legs and wrings the water out over the bathmat and very carefully does not think about Steve Rogers, America’s Sweetheart Soldier--about Captain America with the fake smile and flirty little showomega outfit on all the trading cards and lunchboxes and those weird as hell propaganda comics. 

. . . although, speaking of those comics, she probably should’ve always known Bucky Barnes was an omega; they would _not_ have drawn a beta or alpha in cute little short-shorts and stockings in the forties. Especially not a fictionally-teenaged one. Fashions change and all--Darcy could count on one hand the amount of unbred male omegas she’s seen wear a dress outside of a movie or formal event in the past week, for example--but yeah, that would’ve been a questionable decision on anyone’s part. 

She gives her hair a quick and dirty blow-dry for the sake of not looking like a total schlub and thinks very _thoroughly_ about changing fashion trends and not very thoroughly about how Sergeant Barnes with the pretty slicked-back hair and under-the-lash look might’ve looked in a real-life version of those shorts and stockings and not at _all_ about how Steve must feel right now, forty-five minutes out from the long-lost and long-tortured best friend who’s spent the past year avoiding him. Who’s spent the past year avoiding him and just tricked him into going to the literal opposite side of the damn _planet_ so he could sneak in under his nose and beg an alpha he barely knew for the help Steve’s been trying to give him since DC. 

Yeah. She doesn’t think about anything like that at all. 

“Quinjet ETA: fifteen minutes, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says. Darcy thanks him as she puts her glasses back on and shrugs into her bathrobe, then heads back into the bedroom to dig through her half-unpacked clothes. Bucky’s made the bed and is sitting still and quiet on the edge of it, which is both more and less than she would’ve expected if she’d let herself expect anything. She’s not sure what to say to him. 

There’s a lot she _could_ , just . . . yeah. 

Is it weird that he knows how to make a bed when he barely even knows his own _name_? Or does he just know more than she’s been thinking? 

Darcy lays out jeans and a T-shirt and underwear and spends way too long mentally debating between sweaters like picking the right one is somehow going to cut her a break here, then gives up and swaps the T-shirt for a long-sleeved shirt instead and throws a big button-down flannel leftover from Thor’s first visit to Earth on over it at the last minute. Well, no, maybe the button-down’s too much, she might as well--

Bucky hasn’t moved an inch. He’s sitting right where he was when she came out of the bathroom and has stayed so perfectly still that the bedspread hasn’t even wrinkled. Darcy just . . . looks at him, for lack of a better idea. 

He’s looking at her, too, but something about the way he’s doing it doesn’t make her feel like she’s what he’s actually _seeing_. 

“Do you want to talk to Steve when he gets here?” she asks finally, voice slow and careful. That at least gets Bucky’s attention, and his eyes refocus into something sharp for a second before he shakes his head. They look dulled again by the time he’s done, which would be concerning even without her hindbrain stirring restlessly. 

Her hindbrain is remembering the closet, of course, and thinking that Bucky needs pushed down on that neatly-made bed and fucked ‘til he goes all soft-eyed and shaky like he was in heat and _sobs_ for her. 

The hindbrain is a fucking _idiot_ , of course, and not remembering what was actually going on in the closet. 

“Okay,” Darcy says, rolling up the sleeves of the button-down. It gives her hands something to do that does not involve Bucky Barnes. Or Bucky Barnes’s shirt, or sweatpants, or . . . 

Anyway. 

She ruffles a hand through her hair and checks the lay of her clothes and grabs her makeup bag so she can apply a little eyeliner and some lipstick in the vanity mirror, and when she straightens up Bucky still hasn’t moved at all. Darcy wants to go over to him, wants to at least _say_ something to him, but she has no idea what. He’s not like he was in heat, all needy and uncertain and pleading, but she sure as hell wouldn’t call him confident or put-together either. 

“He’s gonna have questions,” she says finally, checking her makeup in the mirror and pretending not to be looking at Bucky’s reflection behind her, although she’d be really surprised if he missed her doing it. “What do you want me to tell him?” 

“. . . I don’t understand,” Bucky says slowly, his eyes flicking up to hers in the mirror. Yup. Definitely didn’t miss it. Darcy turns around to face him and leans back against the vanity in an attempt to look casual, like talking to Steve about this is going to be something easy and clear-cut and not something that’ll tear into both of them. Bucky doesn’t deserve the complications--it’s not his _fault_. He’s just been trying to feel safe. 

“Like, about where you’ve been, why you’re here, what you’re gonna do,” she clarifies as she caps her lipstick. “About _anything_.” 

Bucky puts his metal hand on his stomach, which wasn’t even what she was talking about but distracts her for a moment anyway. _Mine,_ hindbrain thinks, _so strong and brave and thinking of our pups first and MINE--_

Darcy shakes the thoughts off and puts her makeup away, zipping the bag up neatly and shoving it into the back corner of the vanity. 

“Is he your friend?” she asks after another long moment in which Bucky doesn’t say anything. He frowns, head tipping up. “The one you were talking about before,” she clarifies belatedly, realizing that may be a _way_ more loaded question than she’d meant to ask. “The one you used to nest with? Who was, uh--good?” 

“No,” Bucky replies, his expression going vague. “My friend was different.” 

“Different?” Darcy asks, her stomach feeling a little sick at the sight of that expression. 

“Different,” he repeats, his expression even vaguer and her stomach even sicker. “I knew him.” 

As a response, it doesn’t make much sense. Darcy’s not sure if she should push it, though. It’s so hard to know _what_ to push. 

“He was--I don’t remember what happened to him,” Bucky continues, voice uncertain as he just barely curls in on himself. Darcy’s hindbrain itches to push in against him and soothe away hurts that it can’t even touch. “I saw him the last night before I . . . there was a car, and a real pretty omega with a bunch of alpha gals showin’ it off. I saw my friend that night. With the car. And after that I didn’t see him again.” 

“. . . right,” Darcy says carefully, because Bucky _definitely_ talked about his friend in the present tense last time. Even on the off chance that the friend who didn’t like bullies and has new friends now _isn’t_ Steve, there’s a disconnect there that’s kind of worrying. And by “kind of worrying” she means “kind of freaking her out”. 

“He’s so _good_ ,” Bucky says, almost despairing and doing nothing to placate her worries. “He can’t see me like this. What I--what I let them do to me, what I did _for_ them--” 

Okay. Definitely the disconnect, Darcy thinks, striding over quick and hitting her knees in front of him to cover the back of his hand with her own. 

“Hey, hey, no,” she hushes him soothingly. “He doesn’t care. I know he doesn’t, okay, he misses you so _much_. He just wants to know you’re okay.” 

“I’m _not_ ,” Bucky grits out, staring at the floor past her. “And I ain’t that guy he misses, neither. Ain’t never been that guy.” 

“Yeah,” Darcy says, just looking at his crumpled, miserable face for a moment and ignoring every stupid-ass suggestion her hindbrain has. “You said. I don’t know if he’d say the same, though.” 

She’s positive he wouldn’t: Steve Rogers, Captain freaking America, truth and justice and _not_ the American way but the real, down to the bone _ideal_ that the American way _claims_ to be, that the American way can only goddamn _aspire_ to--

Yeah. She’s positive. 

Bucky turns away, though, not pulling back but not making eye contact, and she can’t really blame him for doubting. Steve is a damn rock and shield, unstoppable force _and_ the immovable object, but what HYDRA did to turn a normal human being into the Winter Soldier . . . 

She squeezes the back of Bucky’s hand, not sure if he can feel it. His eyes flick towards her again, though, so--maybe? She’ll ask later, she promises herself. 

“I gotta go meet the others,” she tells him. “I’ll put the suite on lockdown while I’m gone, okay? Nobody but me’ll be coming in unless you tell J.A.R.V.I.S. they can.” Tony _could_ , obviously, but after the fabrication lab she’s pretty sure that’s not going to be a concern. 

“. . . okay,” Bucky replies slowly, still looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Darcy resolves to try one last time, because . . . because. 

“Is there anything you want me to tell him?” she asks. Bucky’s silent, eyes dropping again, and he shifts in his seat. Darcy tries to be patient, even though her head and her hindbrain are both buzzing restlessly. 

She can be patient, she tells herself. It’s not even as hard as being gentle. 

“I . . .” Bucky hesitates, and Darcy forces herself to bite her tongue. He leans in a little, like he’s about to murmur something into her ear, and she tips her head for him automatically. 

He doesn’t murmur anything into her ear. 

“Oh,” Darcy says, startling slightly at the soft small touch of his tongue to her pulse, and Bucky makes a strange, strangled little noise and buries his face in her neck, biological hand grabbing the back of her shirt. She wraps her arms around him in return automatically, circling his waist tight, and he squeezes the arm across her shoulders roughly and presses his face in tighter. She feels his tongue flick out again in the same kind of kitten-sweet lick burned into her hindbrain from his heat, and his pheromones roll over her. 

It’s not like the closet--not a small enclosed space like that, and not even that strong a pheromone rush--but it still sends an aroused shudder through her gut and makes it hard to breathe. 

“Hey,” she tells him, gripping his hips and pulling back a little to remind him he doesn’t need to do this, he’s safe here no matter what, he doesn’t need to--

Bucky looks up at her from under his lashes and tilts his head forward to expose the vulnerable side of his throat with a pleading little keen, and she chokes. And completely forgets what she’d just been thinking, too. She’s fairly sure it’d been important, but omega. Omega with the too-loose collar of his too-loose T-shirt sliding to the side to show off his naked, unmarked neck and asking for her _teeth_. Omega needing her and _bred_ by her and--

“Nrgh,” Darcy manages hoarsely, and Bucky leans in just enough to give her shoulder another shy little kitten-lick. If she has any conscious thought process between that and ending up with her teeth around the tendon in the crook of his neck, well, _fuck_ knows what it was. 

Bucky whimpers the second her teeth dig in, another pheromone rush rising up off his skin, and Darcy shudders _almost_ as hard as he does. She could pull him into her lap, she thinks, tug those soft sweatpants off and tug him down off the bed and all she’d have to do then would be unzip her jeans and guide him right onto--

Darcy exhales raggedly against Bucky’s skin and he shudders harder, and when she breathes back in everything in her nose is cinnamon-sticky pheromones and sugar-sweetness. She digs her fingers into his hips and her teeth into his neck and he makes a soft, hitched noise against her shoulder in return. 

“Good boy,” her hindbrain has her rumbling into his throat before she thinks better of it, and Bucky muffles another keen against her shirt, his hand fisting tighter against her back. “There you go, omega, so good.” 

Then her actual brain catches up, and she realizes what her hindbrain is actually talking about. 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

“Such a good boy,” she murmurs again, wrapping her arms tighter around him. “So brave for me.” Bucky tenses, and she loosens her grip and lets him slip away. He stares at her for a second and she looks back, and then he gets up and walks into the closet without a word. 

Darcy aches a little, but not necessarily in a bad way. What he just did, coaxing her in close to bite him and making those little noises and clinging to her like that--all that triggered her hindbrain like _fuck_ , and she smells like protective alpha pheromones now. 

But more importantly, she smells like _protected_ omega. The second she put her teeth in his neck Bucky’s pheromones went as pliant and passive as any omega being comforted by an alpha’s bite. 

By a _trusted_ alpha’s bite. 

She gets up and checks her lipstick in the vanity mirror just in case it smudged, then ruffles her hair into order and forces her breathing to stay steady. If she gets upset, she’ll muddy up the scent Bucky just rubbed all over her, and Steve deserves it as pure and unfiltered as she can bring it to him. 

God, poor Steve. Steve who helped her through the heat-bond hangover after Bucky cleared out. Steve who came this close to trusting her with _his_ heat--who _would’ve_ trusted her with his heat, if Natasha and Sam had been held up much longer. 

And she asked him to tell her about Bucky Barnes and didn’t tell him a fucking word herself. 

“It was the right thing to do,” Darcy tells her reflection abruptly, briefly forgetting that Bucky can hear her. He doesn’t respond, though, and--well, it’s something he should probably hear too, she thinks, no matter what he applies it to. 

She thinks. 

“Ms. Lewis--” J.A.R.V.I.S. starts, and Darcy shakes her head quick to cut him off. 

“Coming,” she says. “Lock down the suite behind me, okay, J.A.R.V.I.S.? Uh--but so Bucky can override it, if he wants to.” 

“Of course, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. agrees. Darcy thanks him and then tries to think of the right thing to say to Bucky before she leaves but really can’t think of anything even _close_. 

“I’ll be back,” is all she manages in the end, and slips out without waiting for a response. Bucky probably wasn’t going to give her one anyway, but she doesn’t want to put even the impression of pressure on him right now. 

It’s not even that she thinks he couldn’t handle it. She just doesn’t want to _do_ it. 

Darcy stops by the door to grab her shoes and stops outside it to slip them on, listening to the door bolt itself shut behind her. It’s reassuring, she tells herself, except it’s really not. 

He can get out whenever he wants, she tells herself. He could get out right now and leave the tower completely and never come back again and they’d maybe never know what’d happened to him or the--

Darcy breathes. Breathes. Breathes. She heads down the hall to the elevator and J.A.R.V.I.S. starts it up without her pressing any buttons; yet another convenience of living in a semi-sentient building. 

The numbers climb, and J.A.R.V.I.S. takes her up to the penthouse. Darcy tries not to wince. That’s not gonna be private at all. Not that she’d really thought it would be, just . . . 

The door opens, and she hears Steve choke. 

Yeah. Just that. 

She must _reek_ like Bucky right now, especially to super-soldier senses. Hell, she probably smells more like Bucky than Bucky did himself, the last Steve saw him. Like . . . so much more. 

“He didn’t wanna come,” she announces unnecessarily, stepping out of the elevator onto the landing and looking down to the sunken living room area underneath her. Steve’s standing stiff in the middle of it, jaw tight and eyes fixed on her; Sam and Clint are slumped against the sofa behind him, and Natasha’s perched neatly on the back of it. 

Well, that’s only four out of seven currently-in-the-tower Avengers to disapprove of her life choices and ask super fucking awkward questions, Darcy thinks a little hysterically. Yeah, sure, why not; that’s definitely going to work out for her. 

“Where’d you leave him?” Natasha asks, her expression neutral but assessing. 

“Family suite on the Thor floor,” Darcy replies as she leans forward against the railing, tucking her hair behind her ear and biting her lip. She doesn’t think she should get closer, right now. “I put it on lockdown for him. Thought he’d feel, you know. Safer. He’s got authorization to disengage it if he wants out. Um.” 

Natasha cocks an eyebrow, and Darcy grimaces. It’s not--it doesn’t feel like _enough_. Although she can’t imagine what would, under the circumstances. 

“I fed him,” she says. “I _think_ enough, he wasn’t really . . . uh, he’s not really sure how ‘hungry’ feels, I think. But we ate lunch and dinner and I think he slept while I was. He, um--he built a nest. In the closet.” 

“Already?” Clint asks, nose wrinkling. “Isn’t he only three months?” 

“I wasn’t gonna argue.” Darcy shrugs. She would’ve let him turn the whole fucking _suite_ into a nest if he’d wanted. “I, uh . . . I asked him if he wanted me to tell you anything, and he . . . this,” she says, gesturing to herself meaningfully and not quite looking at Steve. “So. He’s not hurt or anything, he just doesn’t wanna . . .” 

“See me. Yeah,” Steve says tonelessly. Natasha and Sam both zero in on him. Their pheromones don’t change, but she’s a super-spy and he’s ex-pararescue and a counsellor, so . . . yeah. Darcy wouldn’t have expected them to, obviously. 

They definitely look like their pheromones _want_ to change, though. 

“I think he remembers you,” she says, because she doesn’t know if she should tell him the other stuff--the parts about being a good person and talking about who he had and hadn’t been and his confusion about his “friend” and just--just all the rest of the complicated things that’d clearly been confusing Bucky even as he’d been trying to explain them to her. “Like, he’s kind of mixed up about some stuff, but he said some things. Um.” 

“What things?” Steve asks. He is _not_ a super-spy or an ex-pararescue VA counselor, and Darcy tries not to grimace at the intense distress in his scent even though it’s enough to make her feel nauseous with guilt. Her hindbrain’s already on enough of a rollercoaster with Bucky and the pregnancy and the guilt she _already_ had over lying to Steve. 

“I don’t know if I should say,” she hedges, fingers squeezing the railing a little tighter. Bucky’d said a lot in front of Tony and Bruce and Thor and even more to just her, yeah, but Bucky’d been the _one_ saying it, and she’s not sure she should be filling in details on hearsay. “He just--he told me he had a friend. I’m pretty sure he meant you, from how he was talking, but he was switching tenses and, like . . . I don’t know if _he_ knew he meant you.” 

“But he said he had a friend.” Steve’s just looking at her, but his pheromones--god, his _pheromones_. 

“He doesn’t want to see you yet,” Darcy manages, cringing even before she scents--misery, yes, misery and regret and longing and _god_ , poor Steve, just . . . “Or maybe at all, I dunno. He didn’t tell me anything aside from the scenting thing. I swear, he’s as close to okay as I can get him, just--he’s maybe also not in the best place.” She doesn’t mention how he tried to pheromone-bomb her into rutting him in the closet or even how he manipulated her into the scenting instead of just asking, because while those are both kind of dodgy moves, well . . . 

He’s had so much worse. The fact he can even be _that_ gentle with another human being instead of just going right to breaking bones--that means something, she has to think. 

And Bucky maybe wanted to retire to France with Steve and Peggy Carter and raise a little dark-haired litter, Bucky wanted _pups_ , Bucky wanted . . . 

Darcy breathes out. Breathes in. Steve’s still looking at her. 

“He’s confused and he doesn’t feel safe,” she says. “I don’t wanna make him feel like coming in means we’re, like, in _charge_ of him or something. I mean--I’m pretty sure he only came with me the first time with because he was thinking with his heatbrain, and he only came _back_ because he was desperate.” 

“Because he’s pregnant,” Steve says quietly. Darcy winces. 

“Yeah,” she says. She really does not want to know what it’s going to do to tiny developing people to know not only that they were total accidents but that their mom only stopped running from the Avengers because he got knocked up by a knotheaded grad student on the world's longest extended internship. Like . . . that can’t be good for kids’ self-esteem, she’s _sure_. “He didn’t think he could--anyway. We fucked up. Go team didn’t-mean-to-make-a-baby. Way to . . . way to fail, us.” 

“He thought he couldn’t get pregnant,” Steve says in a tone of voice that encompasses just . . . just _everything_ wrong with this situation, and with what’s happened to Bucky, and oh God, Darcy thinks, still more than a little sick to her stomach, life is _not fair_. Like, she was not misguided on this fact before, this fact is not a new fact, just . . .

_God_. 

“It’s not you,” she says instead of addressing any of that, because she’s not crazy enough to _try_ addressing any of that. “He doesn’t feel--it’s not because of you.” 

Steve might be the only reason Bucky’s ever felt safe at _all_ in the past year, all things considered. But she’s not sure she can tell him that right now. 

“It’s all because of me,” Steve says, very calm and quiet and also downright _reeking_ of grief. Darcy may actually throw up if this keeps up, except she absolutely can _not_ throw up if this keeps up, because omega. Because Steve’s upset and needs something she can’t give him, something _no one_ can give him, probably not even Sam and Nat together or even Bucky himself, and her stupid fucking useless instincts don’t even have anything as helpful as “rut him” to offer this time. Which, okay, is probably for the best--because that worked _so well_ with Bucky, for one--but isn’t helping either. 

“So’s him being here now,” Clint points out, and Darcy startles a little. She’d forgotten _he_ was here, just a bit; beta pheromones just don’t stick out like alpha and omega do, and she hasn’t been able to take her eyes off Steve since he started talking. “He didn’t drag you out of the Potomac and run away from HYDRA because seventy years of brainwashing _spontaneously_ cracked.” 

“I got him into it,” Steve says quietly, not quite looking back to Clint. Darcy could cry for multiple reasons, not the least of which is Clint just _existing_ right now. “I put him with the Commandos, I put him on that train, I didn’t get him _off_ that train, and I didn’t find him after.” 

“You also let him beat your ass black and blue instead of putting him down,” Sam says. “And now he’s free and in the tower, because somebody in it made him feel safe enough to come back and hole up here. I’ve heard worse stories, man.” 

“I know,” Steve murmurs quietly, not looking at anyone now. Darcy can still smell Bucky’s cinnamon-sugar pheromones on herself; she wonders how much more nuance super-soldier senses might be picking up out of them. She wonders if there’s anything she can actually _do_ here. 

She’s pretty sure there’s not. 

“He’s contained and protected,” Natasha says neutrally. “The tower is secure. Couldn’t ask for much better, under the circumstances.” 

“I know,” Steve repeats, his jaw tightening. 

“There’s nothing else to do,” Natasha says. 

_“I know,”_ Steve grits out, turning his back on the group. Darcy bites the inside of her cheek so hard it nearly bleeds, just from how he looks. 

And how he _smells_ . . . 

“Thank you,” Steve says, still not looking at any of them. It takes Darcy a second to realize he’s talking to her, and she stares at the back of his head in disbelief when she does. He just thanked her? For _what_ , lying to him? Knocking up a vulnerable omega at just about the worst possible time? “Please tell me if there’s anything you need from me.” 

She opens her mouth to answer, but he’s already headed for the nearest door and disappearing down the stairs. Sam curses under his breath and Natasha’s face is very blank; Clint just sighs a little and slides down in his seat as the other two push themselves to their feet. For a second Darcy thinks they’re going to follow Steve, and she’s pretty sure they think the same. 

They don’t, though. They just stand there, having some kind of silent conversation based in eye contact, and then both turn to look up at her. 

“Maybe check on Barnes,” Sam says, his voice careful. “If you’ve got the time.” 

“I can do that,” Darcy says, hands tightening on the railing. The whole penthouse probably smells like Bucky by now. God knows where Steve’s going off to, and god knows if he’ll let Sam and Natasha anywhere near him, and god knows if--

She breathes out, and retreats backwards into the elevator without saying anything else. Clint watches her go even as the doors slide shut, but the other two are already having another conversation with their eyes. Steve’s alone. Bucky’s alone. Steve’s alone and Bucky’s alone, _bred_ and _alone_ and--

“J.A.R.V.I.S., is Bucky still in the family suite?” Darcy manages from the floor of the elevator, not exactly remembering when she dropped into the crouch and wrapped her arms over her head, but just--not questioning it, not for the moment. It’s not important. 

“Sergeant Barnes remains in his nest, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. informs her, and she breathes out. Okay. Okay. That’s fine. 

“And Steve?” she asks. It’s a little invasive, but-- _but_. J.A.R.V.I.S. wouldn’t tell her anything she couldn’t find out in a public hallway anyway. Well . . . the Bucky thing, yeah, but to be fair, that bedroom’s both of theirs. Maybe. Kind of. 

. . . she should probably tell Bucky that J.A.R.V.I.S. can watch him in the bedroom. 

“Captain Rogers appears to be on his way to the gymnasium, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replies, and Darcy breathes again. It’s not like she thought he was injured or something, just . . . her hindbrain. Her stupid, stupid fucking hindbrain. 

“Okay,” she says, trying to pretend she’s not this close to going total basket-case on the situation. “Steve’s going to the gym and Bucky’s in his nest. And Thor’s--where’s Thor? And Tony? They’re both okay?” 

“Yes, Ms. Lewis,” J.A.R.V.I.S. assures her. “Prince Thor is watching Ace of Cakes with Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig on your floor and Mr. Stark is discussing metahuman prenatal care with Dr. Banner in their shared laboratory.” 

“Metahuman prenatal care,” Darcy repeats blanky. 

Oh god. Super-soldier babies. Oh _god_. 

The elevator stops, and Darcy stands up a little too quick and braces herself with a hand on the wall before the doors slide open. She can hear the Ace of Cakes opening theme from the living room, which for some reason is just fucking _hilarious_ right now, although she doesn’t laugh because it probably wouldn’t come out as a laugh if she did. 

She steps off the elevator and out into the hall to stare blankly at Erik settled contentedly into his favorite armchair and Thor and Jane curled up in an affectionate pile on the couch, Thor purring in contentment as Jane strokes his hair and all of them glancing up at her arrival. Her usual space on the loveseat is empty, and for a second, she pictures Bucky waiting in the other half of it, then shakes the image off quick. That’s--that’s not a “now” thought. Probably not an _ever_ thought. 

“Is everything okay?” Jane asks, concerned. 

“Um,” Darcy says, resisting the irrational urge to go over and pet Thor. Thor’s fine. She can _see_ Thor’s fine. “Yes, but I need to go freak out a little right now,” she confesses with a wince. “So. You guys wanna come over for dinner tomorrow? Maybe?” 

“With you and Bucky? Yeah, sure,” Jane replies, still looking concerned. About her, Darcy thinks, not about the idea of having dinner with a brainwashed super-assassin. So at least Jane’s still Jane, bless her rainbow-bridge-obsessed heart. 

“Great,” Darcy says, still grimacing herself. Dinner’s like . . . dinner’s an appropriate thing to do, right? Introducing them to Bucky over a quiet meal that he can escape for his room at any given time? 

Well. Their room, maybe. She should probably double-check about that. They’re all living on this floor, though; it’s probably better that they actually get used to each other and that Bucky feels comfortable around everyone else. That’s . . . that’s a rational concern to be having. 

God, she just really, _really_ needs to know someone’s going to be available to help him if she can’t for some reason. Like--Erik’s a beta, surely that’ll come in handy. And Thor’s _Thor_. 

She has no idea what Bucky’s thinking. She just needs to be sure he doesn’t assume that he, like, _belongs_ to her--or something even more fucked up--and if he doesn’t want to see Steve yet . . . 

Although considering he doesn’t even wanna see Steve, she really should’ve asked him before inviting people over. _Fuck_. 

“If he’s up for it, I mean,” she amends quickly, glancing towards the suite. “I don’t know if he will be, I gotta check. I just--I dunno, it sounded like a better idea in my head.” 

What _hasn’t_ , lately. 

“Well, we’ve had worse ones,” Jane says with an amused little quirk of her mouth. Darcy kind of wants to hug her, and kind of wants to hide behind her and never come out again. 

“Is the asset well?” Thor asks, just barely frowning. 

“He said we can call him Bucky,” Darcy replies, biting the inside of her cheek. “Okay, actually he said _you_ guys can call him Bucky, he likes, uh--I _think_ he likes me calling him the pet names. Or he said he did, anyway. So yeah.” He’d said that when he’d still thought he was supposed to be _servicing_ her or something, so . . . so. 

“Is _Bucky_ well, then,” Thor says, which--yeah, that’s obviously the important part of the question, and Darcy winces at herself for ignoring it. 

“He’s okay,” she says. “Like . . . not _good_ , but he’s nesting? And he’s eaten. He’s just, you know--kinda confused. I think.” She flashes back to the awkward way he’d gripped his fork at dinner and the perfectly-made bed back in the suite and how hard a time she’s having figuring out what he knows and _doesn’t_ know and tries not to wince again. Thinks about the rules, and the look on his face, and the way he’d said “let you” . . . 

“Confused” doesn’t even _begin_ to cover it. 

“It’s not his fault,” she says, even knowing how ridiculous it is to say--Thor’s already nodding, no surprise. But really, as if Jane or Erik or Thor would _ever_ think that, even for a minute. Bucky’s probably the only person in the whole damn tower who’d blame himself for any of this. 

“He has been long at war,” Thor says. “We lay no blame at his feet for that.” 

“Yeah,” Darcy says, feeling a little helpless and a lot like she should be feeding Bucky again. Or . . . something. At least like she should be in the room with him again, so he’s not alone. 

Unless he wants to be alone. 

Was he ever alone with HYDRA, she wonders. Like--ever? They’d probably been watching him all the time; he’d probably never been by himself at all. Maybe if they’d put him in isolation, but never by _choice_. Never like the past year. 

He didn’t have to be alone. He could’ve come back to Steve at any time; could’ve walked right up to the _tower_ at any time. Could’ve gone someplace else entirely and set himself up in some tiny-ass town or huge, anonymous city that no one would ever have thought to look for him in. He never did any of that; he might’ve stayed by himself the whole time, as far as Darcy knows. Probably _did_ , from the way he’s been talking. 

But he followed Steve the whole time, too. 

Was that just because he was scared, or . . . 

“I have to go,” she says, because the alternate option is standing here and thinking in circles like a crazy person and probably going back to Bucky stinking of nerves and stress and nothing useful. Being, basically, the exact opposite of what he needs. 

Putting everything else aside, all she _can_ be right now is what Bucky needs. 

Somebody’s got to.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/) gonna tumbl!


End file.
